Ex-Prosecutor Accepted 200 Oxycodone Pills for His Legal Fee
A former Florida prosecutor is set to serve three years in prison, after he accepted more than 200 oxycodone pills as payment for legal services from an undercover informant.
Aaron Slavin, 34, pleaded guilty to trafficking oxycodone, a narcotic painkiller. His wife and office manager, Eryn, agreed to enter a pretrial diversion program to avoid drug-possession charges, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Aaron Slavin's oxycodone conviction is ironic for the former state's attorney who touted himself as an expert on prescription-drug trafficking. "It's an enormous problem throughout the Tampa Bay area," Slavin said on a local talk-radio show in June.
Slavin's oxycodone knowledge included how many pills it takes to lead to a criminal drug charge. "It ranges anywhere between 22 and 35 pills to get to that trafficking level," Aaron Slavin said in the radio interview.
Too bad Slavin didn't listen to his own expertise, when a client offered to pay for legal fees with 251 oxycodone pills instead of a check. "Yup, let's do it," Slavin said in a conversation secretly recorded by investigators.
"I would not use them all," Slavin told his client, who was actually an undercover informant, "but I -- I have people that would take them."
Apparently that included Slavin's wife. She and Slavin were arrested at his Largo, Fla., law office after they'd each popped an oxycodone pill, the Times reports. (Must've made for a pain-free arrest.)
Slavin has faced legal trouble at least once in the past. He was fired from his first prosecuting job after he interfered with a friend's DUI investigation, according to the Times.
In addition to prison, Aaron Slavin's oxycodone plea deal includes five years of probation. The ex-prosecutor will also likely lose his law license when his sentence is imposed in March.
Related Resources:
- Ex-Prosecutor Who Took 200 Oxycodone Pills as Legal Fee Agrees to 3-Year Plea Deal (ABA Journal)
- St. Petersburg attorney, wife arrested on drug trafficking charge (Tampa Bay Times)
- Drug Charges (FindLaw)
- Browse Criminal Defense Lawyers by Location (FindLaw)