Off the news: Wrongful arrest leads to large settlement

In an unconscionable case of mistaken identity, Joshua Spriestersbach, 54, was wrongfully arrested and forced to spend more than two years in a psychiatric hospital where, when he continued to profess his true identity, was given medications that made him “catatonic.” Spriestersbach, who was homeless, sometimes went by his grandfather’s name, William C. Castleberry, which is similar to Thomas R. Castleberry, a man wanted on drug charges. He gave that name to police during a stop in 2011, and the alias clung to his record until officers arrested him without verifying his identity in 2017.

See the original article at: Honolulu Star-Advertiser