At his first civil corruption trial, Wayne LaPierre testified he was too ill to helm the NRA. A NY jury found he caused $5.4M in harm to the gun lobby, and that there was cause for his removal.
At a 2nd trial starting Monday, he'll fight the state's proposed ban on his return to any fiscal role. The first time Wayne LaPierre was on trial in New York, he told jurors he was a very sick man and had no intention of returning to the helm of the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby he led — and, the jury found, plundered — over the course of 30 years. LaPierre's lawyers cited his chronic Lyme disease and resulting "significant cerebral volume loss" in asking he be allowed breaks during three days of testimony in January.
NRA lawyers pointed to his sudden, mid-trial resignation as welcomed proof of a "course correction." Six months later, the NRA and LaPierre are returning to a Manhattan courtroom for a second-phase civil corruption trial. And, despite these earlier public assertions of illness and ill-will, LaPierre, 74, is now fighting hard to preserve his right to return to the influential nonprofit and the national stage.
LaPierre was the NRA's face and its "king," as he successfully lobbied against even modest, popular gun-control laws for three decades, lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James told jurors last time around. But James is now intent on "censoring, de-platforming and canceling" LaPierre, his lawyer Kent Correll argued in a brief filed .