Missing paperwork is being blamed for the release of a prisoner from the Kosciusko County Jail who was serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Wesley Fields, 26, was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for robbing, then clubbing, two women in the head with sticks.
After being sentenced, Fields was transferred from the Huntington County Jail to the Wells County Jail, where he was waiting to be taken to the Indiana Department of Corrections to serve his sentence.
On Oct. 31, Fields was transferred to Kosciusko County to appear in Superior Court II for failure to appear in court for an earlier charge of driving while suspended. Once in Kosciusko Superior Court II, on Nov. 3, Fields was released on time served.
After the sentence was handed down by the Kosciusko County judge, Fields was taken back to the Kosciusko County Jail where the National Crime Information Center and the Indiana Data And Communication System databases were checked to see if he had any outstanding warrants. The checks found no active warrants for Fields, which, said Kosciusko County Sheriff Rocky Goshert, is not uncommon once someone already has been sentenced to prison.
Normally when a prisoner is transported to a local facility and then needs to be sent to department of corrections facility, a document called an abstract indicating that information is either mailed or transferred with the prisoner. In Fields' case, said Kosciusko County officials, the abstract was never received.
Kosciusko County officials were never made aware of Fields' prison sentence, and he was released from the Kosciusko County Jail.
"We would have held him if we had the information to do so," said Kosciusko County Public Information Officer Chad Hill.
Fields was arrested Wednesday night in Huntington after an officer tried to stop him for suspicious driving. After a chase, Fields was arrested and booked into the Huntington County Jail.
