Oops. Ky. Officers Drive to Calif., Get Wrong Man, Face Suit
Joe Oros III says he has never traveled outside the state of California. But another man who allegedly stole his identity in 2004 did, and got charged in a Kentucky traffic case in which he failed to appear.
Eager to get their man, even though one charge was a misdemeanor and the other was a minor felony, the Butler County sheriff and a deputy drove from Kentucky to California to pick up Oros. who was about to be released on parole after serving a jail term for domestic violence, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal. Only after they returned from their 4,100-mile round-trip did a jailer in western Kentucky listen to Oros’ claims that they had the wrong man.
In fact, when authorities checked the mug shots and fingerprints, they found that Oros was indeed not the man they had been seeking.
At that point, they returned him to California by plane, after putting him up overnight in a hotel and buying him some new clothes. Oros says authorities treated him well and, aside from the traumatic experience of being falsely accused, jailed and handcuffed, the trip to and from Kentucky and the plane ride—his first—was in many ways a pleasant experience.
However, unfortunately for authorities in Kentucky—and California—Oros has a $10,000 fine to pay, in a previous theft conviction, and no money with which to pay it. So he has retained an attorney, Gary Logsdon, who practices in Edmonson County, Ky., and plans to sue both states.
Had officials simply checked the mug shots, Logsdon says, his client would never have left California.
Says Butler County Sheriff Joe Gaddie: “I had a valid warrant and I served it.” Oros also contributed to his own predicament, Gaddie says, by signing a waiver of extradition to Kentucky.
