Case of Mistaken Identity Lands Man in Mental Hospital for More Than Two Years

It all started when officials in Hawaii arrested the wrong man for a crime he did not commit.

Cops captured an innocent, homeless man, locked him up in a state-run hospital for more than two years, and force-fed psychiatric drugs. Then when they finally realized their mistake, they tried to release him quietly and without restitution.

The Hawaiian Innocence Project made the claims in court documents on behalf of the man, Joshua Spriestersbach, asking a judge to set the record straight.

In a petition filed in court earlier this week, HIP is seeking to have the judge vacate the arrest and correct Spriestersbach’s records.

The details in the court filing layout the bizarre plight that started with him falling asleep on a sidewalk in 2017.

Spriestersbach was houseless and waiting in a long line for food outside a Honolulu shelter when an officer woke him up and arrested him for what he thought was a charge related to sitting or laying down on public sidewalks.

But the officer was actually arresting him because he thought he was a man named Thomas Castleberry, who had a warrant for violating probation in a 2006 drug case.

Lawyers for Spriestersbach argued the whole situation could have been cleared up immediately if officers simply compared the two men’s photographs and fingerprints.

Instead, despite Spriestersbach’s protests that he wasn’t Castleberry, cops arrested him, and was eventually committed him to the Hawaii State Hospital.

Once the fingerprints and photographs were verified years later, officials quietly rushed to release Spriestersbach in January 2020, the petition said.