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North Sacramento Businessman Accused Of Making Threat During Casino Meeting

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - A jail booking photo is not the not the picture of Bob Slobe we're used to seeing.

The prominent north Sacramento businessman has roots so deep in the community, the street he works on bares his family name.

Robert Slobe
Robert Slobe

But Monday night found his name on the Sacramento jail log after he was arrested and accused of threatening opponent and casino consultant Bob Thomas.

"'I will burn your house down' were the words," Sacramento Police Officer Michele Gigante said Tuesday. "'I will burn your house down,' and he said that twice."

The alleged threat came during a meeting at the new Red Lion Hotel that Thomas was moderating regarding a casino that wants to relocate its card room there.

But people in the quiet Woodlake neighborhood, including Slobe, 57, don't want the Casino Royale anywhere near their homes.

"I just think they're too close to us," John Matrenga said. "We don't want the noise, we don't want the traffic."

Matrenga was at the meeting.

"The only thing I heard was he was saying 'You cannot attack my neighbors,'" he said.

"But you didn't hear him say in the meeting, 'I'm going to burn down your house'?" CBS13's Checkey Beckford asked him.

"No, no I didn't hear that at all, but I'm partially hard of hearing," he said.

But police say Slobe made his intentions very clear and refused to follow an officer's orders to leave the meeting.

"He was yelling in a very loud and threatening manner that he will burn his house down," Gigante said.

The house Slobe allegedly threatened to burn down, wouldn't require him to go too far. It's just two blocks away from his own home in the Woodlake neighborhood.

We tried Slobe at his home, but neither he nor his wife, a U.S. district judge, answered the door.

The arrest was news to Slobe's housekeeper.

"His wife didn't let me know either," she said. "She's a judge."

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