Politics & Government

Exonerated Engineer Settles with Court-Appointed Lawyer in Malpractice Suit

Jacob Trakhtenberg, whose conviction on sex abuse charges involving a 7-year-old relative after a 53-minute bench trial was dismissed by the Michigan Supreme Court, has settled a lawsuit against his court-appointed attorney.

A Royal Oak man who was falsely imprisoned on charges that he sexually abused a 7-year-old and lost a fortune fighting the charges has settled his lawsuit against his court-appointed attorney.

Jacob Trakhtenberg, 77, agreed to a $505,000 settlement offer from his former attorney, Debra McKelvy, who was able to avoid a malpractice trial, The Detroit News reports. Trakhtenberg was convicted after a 53-minute trial in 2005 and maintained his innocence, even though admitting guilt would have meant an early release from prison.

James O. Elliott, Trakhtenberg’s lawyer in the malpractice lawsuit said his client has “come to a time in his life when he wants to move on.”

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“This is an opportunity for him to do that,” Elliott said.

Trakhtenberg was a penniless when he emigrated from Russia in 1974 with his first wife and two small children. A trained engineer, his first job in the United States was as a janitor for a local engineering company before he became a project manager for Chrysler in 1984.

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He eventually amassed a large enough fortune to build a $1.2 million home in Orion Township. He lost the home and most of his money fighting the charges, Elliott said.

The sexual abuse charges were filed after the alleged victim’s mother, Trakhtenberg’s former wife, offered damning testimony against him.

Dismissing the conviction in a strongly worded opinion, the Michigan Supreme Court expunged Trakhtenberg’s record and said he could sue McKelvy for violating his constitutional rights, according to an earlier report by the Detroit Free Press on the lawsuit.


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