Man awarded $975k payout after being mistakenly locked in psychiatric hospital for years
A man is set to receive a mammoth payout after a horror case of mistaken identity led to him spending years in a psychiatric hospital.
Joshua Spriestersbach is poised to receive a whopping $975,000 (£737,241) to compensate him after he was wrongfully imprisoned for crimes committed by another man.
According to a lawsuit Spriestersbach filed against authorities in Honolulu, Hawaii, 'not a single person' helped him despite him repeatedly insisting that he was not the person that police had been searching for.
Back in May 2017, Spriestersbach was living on the streets when he was approached by cops while sleeping outside of a homeless shelter in Honolulu.
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The officers had mistaken him for a man named Thomas R. Castleberry, who was wanted on drug-related charges, and subsequently arrested him.
According to the Hawaii Innocence Project, who helped Spriestersbach with his case, he gave the police 'his full name, date of birth and social security card' to prove he wasn't Castleberry - but his identity was 'never verified'.
Spriestersbach, who has schizophrenia, was then taken to the Oahu Community Correctional Centre and ultimately spent four months there before his first court appearance.
He was then sent to the Hawaii State Mental Hospital, where he spent more than two and a half years.
Court documents filed in relation to his lawsuit allege that Spriestersbach's continued claims that they had mistaken him for someone else only led for things to get worse for him.
The Hawaii Innocence Project states: "The more he protested that he was not Castleberry and that he had never committed the crimes, the more he was given strong anti-psychotic medication, which caused him to become catatonic."
After years of 'no one listening' to him, a doctor eventually dug deeper into Spriestersbach's claims and confirmed that he was not Castleberry.
Court records state that he was released from the psychiatric hospital in January 2020 and taken to a homeless shelter.
He was given just 50 cents, copies of his birth certificate, his state identification and a Social Security card.
Spriestersbach lodged a federal lawsuit against the state of Hawaii, the city and county of Honolulu, the state public defender’s office and Hawaii State Hospital in November 2021.
It alleges that a myriad of people - including police officers, public defenders, and health workers - each failed to assist him or rectify the error.
"Prior to January 2020, not a single person acted on the available information to determine that Joshua was telling the truth – that he was not Thomas R. Castleberry," the lawsuit states.
"Instead, they determined that Joshua was delusional and incompetent just because he refused to admit that he was Thomas R. Castleberry and refused to acknowledge Thomas R. Castleberry’s crimes."
The Honolulu City Council approved the $975,000 settlement for Spriestersbach at a meeting last week.
He could also receive another $200,000 (£151,119) from the state in relation to legal claims against the Hawaii public defender’s office.
The confusion between Spriestersbach and Castleberry is said to date back to October 2011.
A police officer quizzed Spriestersbach after he fell asleep on the steps of a school in Honolulu and he reportedly would only offer his grandfather's last name - Castleberry - when asked to identify himself.
As a result, this surname is said to have been added to his record as a possible alias - and this later led to his wrongful imprisonment.
LADbible has contacted the Honolulu City Council for comment.
Topics: Crime, US News, World News, Mental Health
Olivia Burke