Matina Michelle Davis, who recently lost her bid to be elected mayor of Lawton, also lost her free legal representation from the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System on a criminal charge of slander.
Amended information filed June 20 in Comanche County District Court by District Attorney Kyle Cabelka alleges that on Oct. 23 last year, Davis “willfully, knowingly, or maliciously” posted on a social media account “a false rumor or report of a slanderous or harmful nature or detrimental to the character of Alan Rosenbaum,” Lawton’s city prosecutor who earned his juris doctorate from the Oklahoma City University law school, “by stating on the social media account” that Rosenbaum “had been indicted by a grand jury, which was false.”
A trial in the misdemeanor slander case initially was scheduled for June 26, but Special District Judge Christine Galbraith continued the criminal case to the trial court docket set to start on Oct. 2 after the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System petitioned the court to withdraw from Davis’s legal representation.
Davis “is not indigent … based on monthly income,” OIDS pointed out in documents filed in May and June. In an “affidavit regarding ability to pay” that she filed in Lawton’s district court, Davis wrote that she receives $3,800 per month in veteran’s disability benefits and her husband is employed and receives $2,500 every other week.
Davis claimed in an Aug. 1 letter that her public defender, Ashley Nuckolls of the OIDS satellite office in Lawton, was instructed by her supervisor “not to meet with me until after a motion to withdraw is determined.”
However, in a June 23 letter Davis was informed by Nuckolls that her supervisor “is under the impression from your previous communications that you were not happy with my representation in your previous case…” Davis filed a complaint with the Lawton Police Department in January 2023 that accused former Ward 7 Councilwoman Onreka Johnson of harassment and intimidation. But on May 8 this year a Comanche County District Court jury convicted Davis on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting of a crime.
Judge Galbraith set punishment at a $250 fine; $83 in court costs; a $30 District Attorneys Council prosecution assessment for a misdemeanor; a $10 sheriff’s service fee for courthouse security; $500 for a court-appointed attorney; a court clerk administrative fee of $84.60; a district court administrative fee of $126.90; and $700 in fees for six jurors and an alternate over a two-day period. The judge ordered Davis to pay her debt at the rate of $50 per month.
Galbraith on Sept. 4 granted OIDS’ motion to withdraw and approved Davis’ “pro se” request to represent herself in court on the slander charge. The judge scheduled a status review hearing for Nov. 6 and passed the case to the district court trial docket on Jan. 22, 2025.
Meanwhile, Davis appealed her conviction for falsely reporting a crime, and on May 23 Scott Braden of Norman’s OIDS office was assigned to represent her.
Braden on July 12 asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to “reverse or favorably modify” the trial court’s judgment and sentence. That appeal was still pending last Friday.
Davis, 51, uses three last names. In district court she is charged as Matina Davis, but on Facebook she identifies herself as Matina Davis-Abney. And in the “ability to pay” affidavit and in a letter to OIDS she signed her name Matina Davis Prudhomme.
Davis was one of four candidates opposing Stan Booker in his bid for a third term as Mayor of Lawton. In the Aug. 27 election she placed last.