Lorenzen Wright's ex-wife ‘threatening' in audio recordings

By Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The personal assistant to slain former Atlanta Hawks player Lorenzen Wright told a Memphis television news station Monday that she had audio recordings of Wright’s ex-wife threatening to harm him.

The former personal assistant, Wendy Wilson, told ABC24-WPTY that Sherra Wright was recorded saying “things like if she caught him with anyone else, she’d have him ‘F’d up’ or whatever,” according to an article posted on myeyewitnessnews.com, a website for the ABC affiliate.

Wilson said she filed a report with Memphis police because she felt the recorded conversations were “threatening.” She said Lorenzen Wright asked her to keep the tape, adding “he wouldn’t have asked me to keep them if he didn’t think he’d need them someday.”

Sherra Wright’s divorce attorney, Gail Mathes, said her client was a devoted mother of six, struggling to pay the bills, according to the article. “I just feel like Sherra Wright is being placed in a bad light,” Mathes told the tv station.  “She does not deserve it all. She’s been an incredible mother and woman. And she’s done her best to shield her children from financial difficulties.”

When the Wrights divorced, the court ordered Lorenzen Wright to pay $26,000 a month in child support and alimony. Mathes said the former NBA player, who earned more than $50 million during his career, hadn’t made any payments since November. “He gave her a little bit of money and she kept track of it. But, he wasn’t giving her much to support the family,” Mathes told the news station.

The station and other Memphis media outlets have reported that police searched Sherra Wright’s home Sunday.

Garrett said he assumed the search was part of a routine investigation and that it didn’t implicate his client.

“They’re trying to find answers, and that would be one of the logical things to do, to search any premises where Lorenzen was last known to be,” he said in a the myeyewitnessnews.com article.

Meanwhile,  the Memphis Commercial Appeal quoted 911 dispatchers that Wright's last location was outside of their jurisdiction so the call was not immediately forwarded to police investigators.

Since the call was made from Wright’s cell phone, cell towers were used to pinpoint his location. The call, according to the Commercial Appeal, was made shortly after midnight July 19.

When the dispatcher couldn’t see Wright’s location on the map, she notified her supervisor, who determined he was outside of the jurisdiction.

The 911 calls couldn’t be forwarded to investigators until eight days after the incident, according to an administrative review, the paper reported.