Colville man pleads guilty to rape in Spokane alley

Tue., Oct. 4, 2005

By John Craig johnc@spokesman.com

A Colville-area man pleaded guilty Monday to raping a Colville woman in a downtown Spokane alley on June 17.

Michael Leroy Wright, 29, faces a standard minimum of 6 1/2 to 8 1/2 years in prison when Spokane County Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly sentences him Nov. 18. Under state law for serious sex crimes, a state parole board may keep Wright in prison for the rest of his life if the board finds him too dangerous to release after he serves whatever minimum sentence Rielly imposes.

Wright’s plea agreement calls for Deputy Prosecutor John Love to join Assistant Public Defender Mark Hannibal in recommending a 61/2-year minimum.

Wright had been charged with first-degree rape and car theft, but pleaded to a second-degree rape. The car-theft charge was dismissed.

Police said the victim, in her early 20s, met Wright at a social gathering at a mutual friend’s home hours before he raped her, stole her car and left her nearly naked in an alley near Pacific Avenue and Fiske Street. The crime occurred shortly after 1 a.m.

According to police reports, Wright asked at the party whether anyone could give him a ride to Spokane, and the victim volunteered. She wasn’t familiar with Spokane, and Wright asked her to drive him to the alley where he raped her.

Investigators found Wright’s identification rolled up inside the woman’s clothing, which had been placed on top of a blackberry bush in the alley. They later found Wright sleeping in the woman’s car in front of a home on East Everett. The homeowner called police because the sleeping stranger made him afraid to go to work and leave his children at home.

Wright apparently has no previous felony convictions.

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