HIALEAH, Fla. – A plea deal has been reached in the case of a South Florida doctor who was accused of going on a racist rant in a Hialeah Publix in 2021.
Dr. Jennifer Wright of Miami Springs was charged in January of 2021 by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office with criminal mischief with prejudice, battery with prejudice, and tampering with a witness. It was the enhancement of the criminal mischief and battery “with prejudice,” which essentially charged Wright with a hate crime, upgrading the offenses to a felony.
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On Monday, a memorandum obtained by Local 10 News from the state attorney’s office stated that it was not going to proceed with the “prejudice” enhancement and had dismissed the tampering with a witness count.
Wright accepted a plea offer whereby she is charged with misdemeanor battery and criminal mischief and must serve one year of probation. As a part of her probation, Wright must complete a racial sensitivity program and an anger management program.
The alleged tirade, which took place inside and in the parking lot of a Hialeah Publix supermarket, was directed at another shopper who asked her to keep her distance.
According to the initial arrest report, the incident occurred Jan. 20 at the Publix Supermarket at 155 E. Second Ave. in Hialeah.
Police said the victim, Roger Salvo, a Hispanic male born in Nicaragua, was checking out when Wright, then 58, began setting down her groceries on the conveyor belt. The incident took place during the pandemic and the arrest report said that Salvo asked her in Spanish to please social distance.
(See the memo of the plea deal. Warning: Some language may be offensive.)
When she didn’t acknowledge him, according to the report, Salvo asked again in English.
According to police, Wright then called the man a racial slur used for Latinos, and then allegedly said, “We should have gotten rid of you when we could,” and, “This is not going to be your Biden’s America. This is my America.”
She then, according to the report, followed the man out of the store to his car and began to “key the victim’s car with her own keys” along with other damage to Salvo’s car. The basis for the “tampering with a witness” charge was when Salvo told Wright he was going to call the police. Wright hit the victim, which knocked the phone to the ground. She then kicked it, which forced it underneath Salvo’s car. The tampering charge has been dropped.
“I have never had a racist thought in my head,” Wright told Local 10 News in an interview in May of 2021, saying she was not a racist and said the allegations were lies.
Wright said she was the actual victim inside the Publix that day, where she was buying a birthday cake for her daughter’s 18th birthday. In a court filing, Wright said the victim, identified as a Hispanic man who was born in Nicaragua, was the aggressor and called her a “puta.”
“And everybody in Miami knows what that means,” she said. “It’s not a term of endearment,” Wright said during the interview.
The state attorney’s office, in the memo, stated that a variety of factors were considered when it offered the plea to Wright.
“The primary reason this plea was offered was that it served the primary goals of the criminal justice system,” the state attorney’s memo stated. “Punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation.”
“The racial sensitivity program should educate the defendant on the plight of minorities and encourage her to be empathetic towards the historical struggle that these groups have faced. The anger management program should assist the defendant with learning how to handle conflict in healthier and constructive ways,” the memo stated.
At a character evidence hearing in July of 2022, ten of Wright’s colleagues testified on her behalf, according to the memo. While working as an anesthesiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center, her colleagues said that the quality of her care did not change when she treated minorities. It was also found that no minority patients had filed complaints against her.
Wright was terminated from her job at the hospital after her arrest.
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