Man Mistakenly Released From Cuyahoga County, Ohio Jail For The Fourth Time This Year

An Ohio man was mistakenly set free from an Ohio jail despite the fact that he had alerted at least two people that his release was a mistake, local news station WEWS reported Saturday.

The man, 36-year-old Fransisco Cruz, was released from the Cuyahoga County Jail last week, even though he had alerted his jailers to their mistake and even called a judge’s bailiff to tell him about his improper release, Administrative Judge John Russo told the Cleveland news station.

Per WEWS, the inmate was mistakenly freed from the county jail because of confusion over multiple cases against him in the county’s criminal system. Cruz received a sentence of 18 months behind bars in October 2017 following a conviction on domestic violence, drugs, escape, and theft charges. Nine months later, in July 2018, Cruz was released from prison as part of a supervised release program called transitional control.

Less than a year later — in May 2019 — Cruz was once again arrested and charged for drugs and remanded to prison to finish the rest of his sentence behind bars. The day that sentence ended, on October 2 of this year, Cruz was sentenced on the drug charges he picked up in May, per WEWS. A judge ordered Cruz to be taken from jail following the end of his sentence directly to a substance abuse treatment program, but instead Cruz was released from jail.

According to the local ABC affiliate, Cruz alerted jailers that he was to be taken directly from the jail to the substance abuse program, though that did not occur. Following his release, Cruz alerted the office of the judge who sentenced him to the facility, though a bailiff who called the facility said they could only accept Cruz if he was taken to the facility by a sheriff.

Eventually, Cruz was re-arrested when he showed up to meet with his parole officer. According to WEWS, Cruz is not the first inmate in recent history to be mistakenly released from the Cuyahoga County jail. Four inmates have been accidentally released from custody from the jail since the spring of this year, WEWS reported. In all of the cases inmates had more than one case pending in the court system simultaneously, which seems to indicate a common thread in these mistaken releases.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, Cuyahoga County — where Cleveland, Ohio is located — was in the news in late August following reports that gymnast Simone Biles’ brother, Tevin M. Biles-Thomas, had been arrested for a violent crime that occurred in the Ohio county.