Ex-DMV Examiner Is Sentenced in Assaults

A former state Department of Motor Vehicles examiner was sentenced Friday to 90 days of house arrest for sexually assaulting three women while giving them driving tests in the San Fernando Valley.

Charles Lee Wright, 42, of Simi Valley also was given a three-year suspended prison term and placed on probation for an additional 2 1/2 years for the assaults, which occurred at the DMV’s Van Nuys office.

Wright will be electronically monitored to ensure that he stays at home for three months, said Van Nuys Municipal Court Judge Robert Swasey.

In June, Wright pleaded no contest--the legal equivalent of a guilty plea--to charges of battery, sexual battery and assault under color of authority.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Herbert Lapin said a 27-year-old Encino woman told police that Wright made her park her car during a March driving test and then fondled her and forced her to perform a sex act.

Wright also was accused of improperly touching two Van Nuys women in separate incidents in the summer of 1990, Lapin said. One woman said Wright threatened to give her a failing grade unless she obeyed him.

Police said in court documents that they were interviewing the Encino woman at her home when Wright called her to apologize.

The officers listened in on the phone conversation and heard Wright apologize and tell the woman that the incident could hurt his career, according to court documents.