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Man Mistakenly Released From Fla. Prison

Posted on: Friday, 22 October 2004, 17:00 CDT

SANFORD, Fla. - A convicted felon was mistakenly released from state prison after serving only about half of his sentence on drugs and weapons charges. He was free 16 days before corrections officials realized their error and put him back behind bars.

The Department of Corrections is investigating how it released Anthony Bradshaw from prison in Putnam County in north Florida Sept. 28. He was supposed to be there at least four more years.

Bradshaw, 40, of Sanford, was convicted in 2000 of two counts of resisting an officer with violence, and one count each of possession of cocaine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was sentenced to five years for three of the charges, but the gun charge carried a nine-year sentence.

But only the five-year sentences were entered into the department's computer records in August 2000, Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey said. The error should have been caught during a "pre-release audit," he said.

Instead, the mistake wasn't noticed until a probation officer spotted a notation about the nine-year sentence while reviewing Bradshaw's file Oct. 12, Ivey said. He was detained again Oct. 14.

"We'll take appropriate action if we find that people didn't follow our policies," Ivey said.

Bradshaw said in a phone interview from the Seminole County Jail he doesn't remember all the charges he was convicted of nor the individual sentences. He said he started to put the pieces of his life back together after being released.

"I was just feeling the family out," he said. "I was enjoying the family."

He is now scheduled to be released in 2008, according to state records.

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Information from: The Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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