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Mistaken ID Case At Hawaiʻi State Hospital May Cost State $200K
The state seeks $200,000 to resolve claims after Joshua Spriestersbach was wrongly detained nearly three years due to identification errors and legal failures, including public defender malpractice.
- Wednesday, the state Attorney General's Office asked the Legislature to earmark $200,000 to settle claims from a mistaken-identity case that confined Joshua Spriestersbach nearly three years at Oʻahu jail and Hawaiʻi State Hospital, part of a global settlement whose city damages remain unclear.
- Both men were born in 1971, but Honolulu police records first linked Spriestersbach to Castleberry in about 2010, despite their differences and Spriestersbach's protests.
- In 2020, Dr. Allison Garrett at Hawaiʻi State Hospital compared records and hospital staff confirmed Spriestersbach’s identity, leading to his Jan. 17, 2020 release after experts diagnosed schizophrenia.
- Toni Schwartz, public information officer for the state Attorney General's Office, said Wednesday that settlement agreements 'do not constitute an admission of liability or wrongdoing on anybody's part' as lawmakers consider a $200,000 request.
- He was homeless and arrested while waiting for food at Safe Haven in Chinatown, Honolulu, and after release on May 17, 2017, Spriestersbach received essential documents and now lives in Vermont.
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St Louis Post-Dispatch
St Louis Post-DispatchMistaken identity case at Hawaii state hospital may cost state $200K
A bizarre case of mistaken identity that landed a then-homeless man in jail and later caused him to be confined in Hawaiʻi State Hospital for more than two years will cost the state $200,000 under a proposed legal settlement.
·United States
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Total News Sources5
Leaning Left2Leaning Right0Center1Last UpdatedBias Distribution67% Left
Bias Distribution
- 67% of the sources lean Left
67% Left
L 67%
C 33%
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