Humanitarian Hit Man Vincent Smothers (L) was chiefly responsible for freeing young Davontae Sanford from his despicable frame-up
Reporter George Hunter’s August 17th article for the Detroit News about attorney Robert Slameka – Board: Lawyer who defended Sanford unfit to practice – described Slameka’s history of forgeries and unpaid parking tickets, not just his history of providing woefully inadequate defense counsel to the likes of Eddie Joe Lloyd and Davontae Sanford.
Eddie was mentally challenged, and was easily convinced by Detroit police that a false confession from him would smoke out the real rapist/killer. DNA cleared Eddie, but only after prison wrecked his health, causing his premature death shortly after his exoneration.
Davontae is developmentally delayed, and – although just 14 at the time – was interrogated without a parent present. Like Eddie, Davontae was putty in officers’ hands, and shouldn’t have been, contractually: Eddie’s settlement with the city required Detroit police to record all interrogations. Officers ignored that requirement and recorded only the ridiculous end product of Davontae’s interrogations.
Days after Davontae was falsely convicted in 2008 (because of Slameka’s advice to plead guilty, although innocent), self-professed hit man Vincent Smothers confessed to a role in the homicides that Davontae was framed for and named his accomplice … another hit man, not a half-blind, developmentally impaired child. Smothers’ eight other homicide confessions were prosecuted, but the quadruple hit that Davontae was framed for was ignored. Davontae wasn’t freed until this year … just as the statute of limitations on officer perjuries was expiring.
No lawless public servant faced any consequence for harming Eddie or Davontae, and neither did Robert Slameka. And – according to George Hunter – Slameka hasn’t faced consequences for unpaid tickets and forged documents, either. This gave me a sickening hunch was that there was a second Slameka – a connected Slameka – running interference for Robert. It appears I was right.
I spent some time browsing, and found a January 8, 2005 Detroit News/Detroit Free Press obituary for an Irene Slameka, who had a son named Robert and a granddaughter named Amy. Facebook turned up an Amy Slameka who appears to be an attorney. Browser searches found an attorney named Amy Slameka employed at the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office from 2001 until at least November of 2011, when an Animal Welfare Institute article about Amy Slameka was posted [https://awionline.org/content/animal-welfare-institute-announces-2011-schweitzer-awards]. The Wayne County Prosecutors Office prosecuted Eddie, Davontae and Vincent, and these years encompass Eddie’s exoneration and compensation settlements with Michigan and Detroit, Davontae’s frame-up and Vincent’s long-ignored confession.
The Animal Welfare Institute article says:
Amy Slameka has been with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office since January 2001. She has been assigned to the felony trial division for the majority of her career … Amy is an executive member of the Animal Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan, a Character and Fitness Committee Member of the State Bar of Michigan and a board member of the Grosse Pointe Animal Adoption Society …
Of course, if this Amy Slameka is the daughter of the Robert Slameka, glaring conflicts of interests arise not only from Amy working under Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy in the felony trial division, but in Amy’s ties to the State Bar of Michigan, which has always been responsible for determining Robert Slameka’s fate as an attorney – he has made the news for other controversial defense behaviors. Had the Bar addressed Robert Slameka’s impropriety in publicly (and quite falsely) portraying Eddie as guilty, he wouldn’t have been around to so ridiculously represent Davontae, among other things.
Given the national attention devoted to Davontae’s story, including Robert Slameka’s abysmal advice to plead guilty, it’s illogical to believe that Kym Worthy was unaware that she had a staff member named Slameka, just as it’s illogical to believe that the expiration of the statute of limitations on officer perjury had nothing to do with Davontae being freed this year, instead of in 2008.
Based on his initial inaugural promises, not my imagination, I fully expected President Obama to immediately interrupt the predation of the Prison Industrial Complex as well as conviction corruption, but he did nothing for over seven years. Now, he’s eleventh-hour aggrandizing his “legacy” by acting to distance himself from privatized prisons as well granting clemency to those whose harsh sentences were based on unfair laws … Rule of Law convictions, not Color of Law false convictions like Eddie and Davontae’s.
Obama can still order Loretta Lynch to descend on places like Wayne County, Michigan and Brevard County, Florida to file federal Color of Law charges against those who serially engineer frame-ups and labor to keep them intact. But he likely won’t; he’s getting so much good press for taking the easy way out.
Vincent Smothers’ moral compass, fortunately for Davontae Sanford and his family, has been in far better working order over the same time frame, and then some. It wasn’t easy for Vincent to get the attention of the media, and it certainly wasn’t without risk … he hasn’t made any friends in the system that is responsible for his well-being, and likely will be for the rest of his life.
I’m again calling out other Vincent’s; criminals whose moral compasses work better than public servants: If you got away with rape or murder – even if no one is serving your time – step up. If officers or prosecutors tossed your legitimate charges in turn for testifying falsely against someone else, step up.
I’m also issuing a new call out: If you work for public servants who broke laws to achieve convictions, step up; if you’ve heard public servants brag about breaking laws to achieve convictions, step up.
Whether you’re a repentant felon, a troubled public employee or a relative or acquaintance of a rogue public servant, don’t step up abruptly, step up with all due caution. Find advocates who can assist you in clearing your conscience without throwing yourself to the wolves, like the Archangels of Justice. You can contact the organization through their Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/archangelsofjustice/about/?entry_point=page_nav_about_item&tab=page_info] or call Ira Robins at 414-305-8832. After years of tackling the corrupt criminal justice system on their own dimes, the Archangels can ill afford to continue to work for free, so please expect to pay a bit for their professional help, unless your circumstances are unusually dire and/or danger is imminent.
Patriotism isn’t shedding a tear and waving flags every 11th of September. Patriotism is accepting personal responsibility for helping to make our government work for everyone, every day, everywhere with the only exceptions being legitimate errors … not ambition, malice, apathy, dereliction, incompetence, cronyism or any combination thereof. Just as only you can prevent forest fires, only you can undo public corruption. Step up.
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