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Robert Slameka (right) in court on another case
Robert Slameka might be the kind of attorney who shows up in the AMC series "Better Call Saul."
In other words, there's an interesting tale to tell about his career -- just like TV attorney Jimmy McGill, played by Bob Odenkirk, who operates an office in the back of a nail salon. Slameka apparently used a hotel lobby casino as his office, George Hunter of The Detroit News reports.
Slameka was the attorney who convinced 14-year-old Davontae Sanford to plead guilty to four drug house murders in 2007 he didn’t commit.
He's trying to get his law license back. It was suspended for breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s house.
Hunter writes:
Robert Slameka also lost his driver’s license years ago because he owed more than $600 in unpaid parking tickets. At a recent Michigan Attorney Discipline Board hearing to determine whether to restore his law license, Slameka blamed his “drunken” wife for the 42 outstanding infractions, saying she would become intoxicated and throw the tickets away without telling him.
There was a hole in his story, though: His wife was dead when the tickets were issued.
His mother was dead, too, but that didn’t stop Slameka from posthumously forging her name on her stock dividend checks and depositing them into his bank account.
Slameka has come under fire for being one of many links in the criminal justice system that failed Sanford, who was released last week from prison after being wrongfully convicted in 2008 for the quadruple homicide in a house on Detroit’s east side.
David Moran of the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic, which handled Sanford’s appeal, was sharply critical of Slameka's handling of the case, The News reports. Sanford, who was prone to tell tales, was learning-disabled. Shortly after he went off to prison, a hit man confessed to the killings and said Sanford had nothing to do with the slayings.
Moran told the three-member discipline board “99.5 out of a 100” attorneys would have tried to have Sanford’s confession thrown out of court, Hunter writes.
The News cited discipline board panelist Paul Fischer's exchange with Slameka during the April 1 hearing:
Fischer: “Where’s your new office?”
Slameka: “The hotel lobby of the downtown casino.”
Fischer: “You know, it sounds like ‘Better Call Saul.’ ”
