Cornealious Anderson Escapes 13-Year Prison Sentence Due To Clerical Error

Cornealious Anderson was sentenced to 13 years behind bars after he was convicted for the role he played in a robbery well over a decade ago. According to MSN News, Anderson didn’t serve the time — at least not in full. Despite asking about when he should report for his sentence and wondering when he would be heading to jail, Anderson flew under the radar due to a clerical error. As the years passed, Anderson wondered when he would get picked up — when his time would finally come. After years of waiting, Anderson’s time did come.

He was arrested last year and sent to prison. You see, Anderson was supposed to have been released from jail in July — after serving his sentence. However, he wasn’t in jail, which is why authorities went to his house to retrieve him. According to Huffington Post, Anderson was in court on Monday, May 5 and the judge let him walk away as a free man, forgiving his 4,794 day sentence.

Cornealious Anderson was told he was a good man and that the way that he lived his life since being convicted of a serious crime proved that he was not a threat to society. His hearing only lasted 10 minutes, and with the support of his family and friends, Anderson listened to his fate as it rested in the hands of someone else.

Mississippi County Associate Circuit Judge Terry Lynn Brown said:

“You’ve been a good father. You’ve been a good husband. You’ve been a good taxpaying citizen of the state of Missouri. That leads me to believe that you are a good man and a changed man.”

Cornealious Anderson did wonderful things with his life over the past several years. He got married, started a family, owned and operated three construction businesses, took part in volunteer work at his church, and coached his son’s youth football team. He knows that prison wasn’t meant for him and he says that his faith helped get him through. It’s hard to even imagine a man like Anderson going from his middle-class life to a life to a life where some believe suicide is a better option. As previously reported by Inquisitr.com, an inmate at a prison in Kentucky recently starved himself to death. That’s clearly not the life that was meant for Anderson and those that know him would agree.

Anderson is lucky and he is thankful — and hopefully he will go on to live his life without worrying about looking back.

“Anderson, 37, left the courthouse with his wife and 3-year-old daughter on one arm, his grandmother on the other, tears in all of their eyes.”

[Photo courtesy of AP Photo/Jeff Roberson via Huffington Post]