DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area lawyer with a history of misconduct was disbarred Tuesday after he was accused of forging another attorney’s signature on documents filed at the Michigan appeals court.
Robert Slameka’s law license was taken away by a panel at the Attorney Discipline Board. He didn’t appear at the hearing and later didn’t return a message seeking comment.
Slameka in 2011 accepted $7,500 to handle an appeal for Damitrice Vann, who was convicted of carjacking and other crimes in Oakland County, according to the Attorney Grievance Commission.
Slameka, 74, was accused of subsequently filing court documents under the name of another attorney, Matthew Evans. The filings occurred just before Slameka began serving a 90-day suspension for misconduct in another matter.
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“I did not work on your case nor did I file any pleadings on your behalf. … I don’t know why or how this occurred,” Evans said in a letter to Vann.
The case was discovered by Abbey Lent, a student at the University of Michigan law school.
For other reasons, Lent was reviewing Vann’s conviction as a possible new case for the law school’s Innocence Clinic. She looked at the file and noticed that Slameka had told the appeals court that Evans was taking over as the attorney.
“Evans’ signature looked weird,” Lent said in an interview. “He confirmed he had never worked on this case. He signed a sticky note, scanned it and faxed it to us. His signature looked nothing like the signature on the substitution form.”
Slameka’s law license was suspended for six months in 2015 after misdemeanor convictions for larceny and breaking and entering. He was well-known at the Wayne County courthouse and had many court-appointed clients.
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