Life imitating art or art imitating life?
Lataryion Perry who is also actor on Showtime “The Chi” and “Chicago Med”) that auditioned for Korey Wise’s role in the recent explosive “When They See Us” film by Ava DuVernay is facing his own real life legal battle against the criminal justice system.
Perry who is an actor, director and also a well know community advocate has alleged that he has been wrongfully accused of having a loaded illegal firearm in his trunk after cops pulled him over for first missing a turn signal and then the claim of the smell of marijuana. When checking his trunk the first time they allegedly found nothing. When checking it for a second time “miraculously” they found a loaded gun. Several people had access to his trunk before Perry was pulled over because he was in town that day filming and so crew and actors all had access to his trunk for various props and filming items. His fingerprints are also not on the gun or bullets allegedly found in his trunk. However, his lawyer still wanted him to take a plea and go to jail for something he insists he did not do.
With the help of the Lawyer Bae LLC organization and Korey Wise of “The Central Park Five”, Perry was able to retain a new attorney to represent him. Wise was happy to assist the actor because he felt like Perry had been wrongfully accused of a crime just like with his infamous case.
This story highlights the need more than ever for greater access to, and inclusion in the legal system with the help of organizations like Lawyer Bae. The Lawyer Bae organization has over 20,000 social media followers and email subscribers in the one year since its founding and is the number one lawyer page searched on Instagram, In addition, Lawyer Bae highlights the need of more lawyers from underrepresented communities. As of 2018, according to the ABA, 85% of the legal profession is white and only 38% of it is female. Lawyer Bae combats these alarming statistics by providing mentoring, networking and coaching to give law students and young lawyers the tools to graduate from law school and have sustaining careers in the legal profession with an emphasis on underrepresented groups like women, minorities, immigrants and the LGBTQ. It also gives the public access to legal help nationwide with their Lawyer Bae Directory and access to their legal related community service events nationwide. Lawyer Bae co-owners Jehan Carter and Jessica Tehlirian used this same Lawyer Bae Directory and their social media page to help Perry find a new lawyer.
This is definitely a story of “life imitating art”; although Perry did not get the Netflix role he is forever grateful to Korey Wise assistance and thinks it is cosmic that he would be the person to help him fight his own real life legal battle against the broken criminal justice system.