Abdul Wright, a former Minnesota Teacher of the Year, was sentenced Friday to a little over 14 years in prison for sexually assaulting a former student when she was 14.
Wright, 39, was convicted on Sept. 10 of one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for sexually assaulting the student during the 2016-2017 school year; he had been named the Minnesota Teacher of the Year for 2016. He was the student’s eighth-grade language arts teacher at Harvest Best Academy, a north Minneapolis charter school.
Wright waived his right to a jury trial. His bench trial took place in August and September before Hennepin County District Court Judge Sarah West, who found him guilty. West sentenced him Friday to 172 months, or 14 ⅓ years, in prison.
After serving his term, Wright will be released on a 10-year conditional period, during which he will be tracked and supervised by authorities, and will have to abide by certain requirements.
Minnesota prisoners have to serve two-thirds of their prison term before they are eligible to carry out the rest of their sentence under supervised release outside of prison.
According to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, the conditional release period “is in addition to any supervised release time served as part of the original sentence.”
Before West handed down the sentence, Wright, wearing an orange jumpsuit, sat between his two attorneys and told the judge that he was sorry for his actions.
“I take full responsibility for the harm that I’ve caused and I will every single day for the rest of my life,” he said.
West told Wright she has not seen him take accountability for his behavior.
“You treated her in about the most horrific way someone can treat someone under their care,” she told Wright.
Wright’s attorneys advocated for the presumptive sentence of 12 years.
One of his attorneys, Natalie Cote, told West that Wright has “spent much of his life helping others.” In a written memorandum filed before Friday, Cote pointed to how Wright was a Minnesota Teacher of the Year, and said he had made “positive contributions to the lives of many of his students.”
Prosecutors asked for 14 years. Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Evan Powell said Wright used his status and position to take advantage of the student.
“He manipulated everyone around him to get what he wanted,” Powell said.
The student, now 23, testified that Wright assaulted her many times, including in several classrooms at Harvest Best Academy after school. One incident occurred in a storage area in the back of a classroom while Wright’s three young daughters were watching a movie nearby. Sahan Journal is not identifying the student due to the nature of the crime.
The student was not present for Friday’s sentencing hearing, but submitted a victim impact statement to the judge. Her father attended the hearing and told Sahan Journal that his daughter is still “trying to pick up the pieces of her life.”
“I think he earned his sentence,” he said of Wright. “I don’t feel like he portrayed any type of regard for what he did.”
The student testified that the abuse stopped after her father discovered that she and Wright were having late night phone conversations that Wright initiated. The student’s father confronted Wright and leadership at Harvest Best with the phone records, and tried to seek a restraining order against Wright. Her father and Wright eventually came to an agreement that limited her communication with Wright.
The woman said she didn’t tell her family about the abuse until 2024, after she studied psychology in college and began to process what had happened to her.
In her September decision convicting Wright of the abuse, West wrote that she found the student’s testimony credible and compelling, and that she found Wright’s defense “illogical.”
West wrote that a significant piece of evidence was a recorded phone call between Wright and the woman’s mother from 2024, after the student had come forward about the abuse to her mother. In two recordings played in court, Wright did not deny the abuse and begged the woman’s mother not to report him to police. He also offered to leave the country and to stop teaching.
West noted in her decision that Wright testified that he was “saying whatever he could to survive the situation.” But, the judge wrote, that answer and others Wright gave during his testimony lacked credibility.
“It appeared to this Court that Mr. Wright was lying during his testimony and was truthful during the recorded call,” West wrote.
The student filed a civil lawsuit against Wright and Harvest Best Academy, which has been paused until Wright’s criminal case concludes.
Harvest Best Academy recently settled a lawsuit filed by a different student for $150,000 regarding former teacher and basketball coach, Aaron Hjermstad, who has been convicted of sexually assaulting 16 children.
