Ron Meshbesher was known for decades as one of the top criminal defense attorneys in Minnesota, the go-to lawyer if you were charged with high crimes or misdemeanors.

He's retired now, but still much admired, not least for a distinctive bathroom at the house he and his wife, Kim, had built in Deephaven 23 years ago. When the defense rests at their house, you're in for some fun.

Walk into "Club Fed" as the sign outside the bathroom says, and you're in a small room ringed with bars that looks like a jail cell. There's a mirror on the wall with numbers under it. Look at your reflection, and you'll swear you are in a booking photo. There's also a small metal bed, the kind you'd hate to spend the night on.

No towel racks here. The hand towels hang through handcuffs affixed to the wall.

Graffiti with fake messages "written" by some of Meshbesher's most notorious clients are scrawled on the walls.

"Pardon me, do you have a match?" wrote Marjorie Caldwell, acquitted in the murder of her adoptive mother, heiress Elizabeth Congdon in Duluth, but later convicted of arson and insurance fraud.

"Casey was here," wrote Casey Ramirez, accused of drug smuggling, who actually did show up at the house and had his picture taken in the "cell."

"I didn't know the glove was loaded," wrote DF, a reference to Dave Forbes of the Boston Bruins, who was charged with assault for striking Henry Boucha of the Minnesota North Stars with a hockey stick during a hockey game in 1975. There was a hung jury.

"Hey, Bud, got $20?" writes Ken Callahan, accused and acquitted of the 1972 kidnapping of Virginia Piper, who was freed after her husband paid a $1 million ransom in $20 bills.

Ron says his jailhouse toilet is a favorite spot for guests at the house, but he can't recall who came up with the idea.

The bathroom does double as a sort of cell for the family dog, "Justice." Kim Meshbesher sends Justice there for "time outs" for dog mischief. She says she sometimes dresses the Shih Tzu in a striped jail outfit.

Randy Furst 612-673-4224 Twitter: @randyfurst