Darryl Wright of Snoqualmie appeared in U.S. District Court in Tacoma Aug. 26, for sentencing on multiple charges of defrauding the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Wright, a former Snoqualmie Planning Commissioner and business owner, pleaded not guilty to nine counts of fraudulently receiving more than $250,000 in government benefits, following his federal indictment in January, 2015. In March of this year, he changed his plea to guilty on two reduced charges, two counts of wire fraud for fabricating claims of disability and receiving payments of approximately $40,000.

In an Aug. 18 sentencing memorandum, the U.S. Attorney’s Office recommended that Wright be sentenced to five years in prison.

“Indeed, unless the court issues a sentence of this magnitude or greater, it is a guarantee that defendant Wright will continue to con government agencies, friends, family, girlfriends and strangers,” the memorandum stated. “In fact, Darryl Wright has already set out to recapture the benefits rightfully stripped from him, rather than steer a course to a normal, law-abiding life.”

Prosecutors claim Wright’s elaborate scheme defrauded government agencies of more than $750,000 in benefits due to a wounded veteran.

Judge Benjamin Settle did not rule on a sentence last week, but called for additional information on the case.

“The Court is holding an evidentiary hearing as part of the sentencing process,” Wright’s attorney Chris Black wrote in an email message to the Record. “The reason for the evidentiary hearing is that Mr. Wright did not admit facts in his plea agreement necessary to establish the loss amounts that the government is seeking to establish…. The defense has proposed a loss amount between $15,000 and $40,000.”

A date has not been set for the evidentiary hearing, but Black expected it would be in the next few weeks.

In contrast to the prosecution’s sentencing recommendation, Black said “the defense has proposed a sentence of a year and a day in prison. This proposal is based on: Mr. Wright’s well-documented and distinguished service to our country while he was deployed in Iraq; the fact that Mr. Wright continues to suffer from well-documented physical and mental health disabilities related to his service in Iraq; our proposed monetary loss amount; and Mr. Wright’s lack of prior criminal record.”

According to the sentencing memorandum, the fraud Wright is accused of indicated “sophisticated means,” “obstruction of justice,” and “criminal history category” scores that suggest a more severe sentence.

Wright reportedly claimed to have post-traumatic stress disorder from serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan during the Iraq War, primarily from a rocket attack. However, according to the sentencing memorandum, “The evidence at trial demonstrated that Darryl Wright committed fraud in the inducement to convince SSA to place him on disability. The evidence at trial also demonstrated that Darryl Wright was highly capable and not at all hobbled as he described in his SSA application.

His fraud, the document continued, showed sophisticated means as he “fabricated multiple documents (invoices for a full-time care-taker, false “buddy statements”) and “stole the identities of friends and acquaintances and used them to create false documents in support of his scheme.”

Wright’s obstruction of justice, according to the memorandum, included “all of the conduct involving C.J. Jackson,” a U.S. Economic Development Agency employee who discovered some false orders reportedly forged by Wright to avoid termination as an EDA employee.

“When it was clear that he faced terminate, Darryl Wright directed charges at C.J. Jackson, using his fraudulent status as a decorated, wounded veteran to threaten the EDA with various legal actions, claiming he was afraid of C.J. Jackson and exaggerating symptoms from his alleged PTSD.”

Regarding his criminal record, the memorandum states that Wright has “a very active criminal history, but very few convictions. Not surprisingly, the defendant has repeatedly used his status as a disabled combat veteran to walk away from and to talk his way out of criminal charges… The defendant is also named as the respondent in three separate (non-expiring) protection orders naming three separate protected parties. But for his use of his fraudulent status as a wounded veteran, defendant would have a very, very significant criminal history.”

According to minutes from the hearing, the court also called “for defendant to have no contact with his daughter/witness until the conclusion of these sentencing proceedings.”