Slaying case is drawn into OPD turmoil

The attorney for a defendant in a shocking 2013 Oakland killing took the first steps Wednesday in trying to get the charges tossed after it was revealed last week that the lead detective in the case is under investigation for having his girlfriend help him write some of his reports.

One of the reports veteran Oakland police Detective Sgt. Mike Gantt allegedly had his girlfriend transcribe was a record in the July 2013 slaying of 66-year-old Judy Salamon, a beloved pet nanny who was shot while driving in her Maxwell Park neighborhood.

Gantt, who is on administrative leave, was fired by the department in 2004 for meddling in a rape case, but

won his job back during arbitration and was only briefly suspended, his attorney, Michael Rains, wrote in a 2006 newsletter for the PORAC Legal Defense Fund.

Rains did not immediately return phone calls or emails.

Anne Beles, the attorney for 23-year-old Mario Floyd, one of the suspects in the Salamon slaying, went on the record Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court saying she had learned Gantt was under investigation.

Beles said she intends to file separate motions asking for records from the Alameda County district attorney’s office and the Oakland Police Department to find out if the detective’s cases were in any way compromised.

She said she learned about the investigation through media reports and has not been contacted by prosecutors or police about the probe.

“It’s the secrecy that’s most problematic,” she said outside court Wednesday. “I’m asking for the records that could reflect upon Gantt’s credibility, but I don’t know what the facts are yet.”

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a written statement last week that she became aware of a detective’s “alleged criminal misconduct” on June 11.

The case against Gantt, she said, is unrelated to the sexual misconduct probe involving a teenage sex worker that has rocked the Oakland Police Department, which has seen one police chief and two acting police chiefs step down in recent weeks.

Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods said he will review all the criminal cases Gantt has investigated.

“This officer’s credibility is in question,” Woods said Friday after learning about the investigation from the district attorney’s office. “What cases has he testified to and sworn under oath were authored by him, and actually were authored by his girlfriend?”

Gantt was the lead investigator in the Salamon case and has already testified in a preliminary hearing.

Floyd and co-defendant Stephon Lee, 25, were arrested and charged with special-circumstances in the July 24, 2013, slaying. They are both facing life without parole.

Salamon was shot while driving on the 2400 block of Fern Street and crashed her Subaru Outback.

At the time of the arrests, Gantt told The Chronicle that Salamon had encountered the men and recorded them with her cell phone because she believed they were involved in a burglary and was trying to gather evidence before she was shot.

Salamon was a selfdescribed “pet nanny” and beloved fixture of the neighborhood, where residents were stunned by her killing.

Before that investigation, Gantt was terminated by the department in 2004 after an internal affairs investigation found he compromised a criminal rape case by “showing his friend (the suspect) a copy of the OPD crime report (which Mike denied doing),” Rains wrote.

The termination was overturned in arbitration.

“This officer’s credibility is in question. What cases has he testified to and sworn under oath were authored by him, and actually were authored by his girlfriend?” Brendon Woods, Alameda County public defender