This isn’t good.

James Cheatham is a forgiving man, but after getting robbed of $60 on his birthday while trying to perform an act of kindness, he had little reservation about testifying in court.

Plus, the 45-year-old father of three from Queen Village had a subpoena to show up in court about the September incident, and he knew he couldn’t ignore it.

Which is why Cheatham was confused when, he says, a public defender called him twice before a scheduled February trial to tell him he didn’t have to worry about court – that there was nothing a judge would do if he didn’t show.

The public defender ****  suggested, “Do not answer the district attorney’s phone calls,” Cheatham said Tuesday after a hearing in the case.

At the hearing, the Defender Association of Philadelphia removed **** from the case amid allegations of possible witness tampering.

“He was discouraging a victim of a crime, not to come to court,” Assistant District Attorney Caroline McGlynn said of *** after the brief hearing. “If a friend of a defendant did that, that would be intimidation.”

It seems that **** has been in practice for about three years.

Update: I have removed the lawyer’s name after learning that the allegations were falsified, and the lawyer was cleared of any misconduct.