Christina Hall

Detroit Free Press

A cell phone expert who appeared in Netflix's documentary series "Making a Murderer" is taking a $10,000 payment offered to him for his defense work in a high-profile murder case in Macomb County.

Michael O'Kelly on Sunday sent a text to attorney Azhar Sheikh, who represented James VanCallis in the 2014 beating and stomping death of April Millsap, stating that he would take Sheikh's advice and accept the payment offered by the court. The text did not state if O'Kelly would appear in Macomb County Circuit Court today to discuss his 17-page bill, and O'Kelly did not appear for the hearing.

O'Kelly initially billed the county – and thus taxpayers – $37,719 for his expert work, which was $9,000 more than what VanCallis' court-appointed attorney was paid. In his bill, O'Kelly said he would take the previously court-approved $15,000 fee if he was paid within 15 days of March 3.

O'Kelly didn't testify. Instead, he sat in court during testimony and assisted Sheikh with questions throughout the weeks-long trial for VanCallis, who was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison without parole in the death of the Armada teen along the popular Macomb Orchard Trail.

VanCallis gets life in prison in murder of Armada teen

Sheikh said that Judge Mary Chrzanowski "was well within her rights to not pay" O'Kelly if he didn't show up for today's hearing, a hearing that was moved from two weeks ago after O'Kelly didn't appear, and Chrzanowski wanted to give him more time to come to court. She previously said she was not going to have county taxpayers pay O'Kelly for work he was not doing.

Sheikh said today that it was good that O'Kelly accepted the payment, adding that it "saves any appellate issues and is a decent compensation for the work he did." Sheikh said the $10,000 payment saved the county more than $27,000. The court called the compensation "reasonable."

In November, Chrzanowski approved a $15,000 flat fee for Sheikh’s cell phone expert for the defense of the St. Clair County man charged in the 14-year-old girl’s death as she walked her dog. O'Kelly was is in Nebraska and reduced his fee for the case. A fee was established by the court after information was presented that O’Kelly had charged more than $100,000 in an unrelated, out-of-state case.

O’Kelly billed for nearly 265 hours of work, including Saturdays and Sundays and trips, including one to Armada. Sheikh has said a lot of the work in the bill was unauthorized.

O’Kelly was not new to Macomb County for cell phone expert work. He was paid $2,500 in 2014 for cell tower analysis in the www.Backpage.com murders case, in which four women were killed.

Contact Christina Hall: chall99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @challreporter.