Wright's self-inflicted damage?

Laura Leslie says Thomas Wright's testimony was damaging.

The WUNC reporter writes on her blog that the former state representative's testimony at his criminal fraud trial "got weird, then ludicrous, then absurd."

She notes he said that District Attorney Colon Willoughby doesn't know how the legislature works, claimed that someone must have tampered with evidence and claimed that he was being targeted by politicians angry about his work on the 1898 Wilmington riots.

I'm certainly no jury expert, but I'd guess from their expressions they weren't buying it. By the end of the day, Wright was grinning and laughing at Willoughby from the stand, but they weren't laughing with him. He even tried to joke about his wife's (very sympathetic) testimony, but it fell completely flat.

Leslie says that Willoughby refuted or challenged Wright's statements with evidence.