INDIANAPOLIS â Earlier this month, the Marion County Sheriffâs office mistakenly released a man who was connected to a fatal shooting in Minnesota and now FOX59/CBS4 has learned that another inmate was mistakenly released eight days before that.
Toriano Hellams, 41, was originally booked into the jail on Nov. 14, 2022, on numerous felony charges including battery of a police officer and resisting law enforcement.Â
The charges stem from an incident where Hellams was revived from an overdose and then attacked the police officers at the scene.
Court documents indicate Hellams âpulled, twisted and squeezedâ an officerâs testicles. He also bit and attempted to choke an officer during the incident.
Hellams bailed out but was booked back into jail less than three months later on unrelated drug charges and thatâs where he stayed until he was sentenced on Sept. 5 to two years in prison for attacking the officers.Â
As part of a plea agreement, his drug charges were dismissed.Â
However, the same day he was sentenced, Hellams walked out of the Marion County Jail.Â
Nobody even realized what had happened until Marion County Community Corrections was alerted nearly two weeks later. The agency applied for and was granted a warrant to have Hellams re-arrested, writing he was âerroneouslyâ released.Â
After a lengthy back-and-forth with the sheriffâs office, community corrections and court administration, FOX59/cbs4 was able to get an answer as to how this happened.
It begins when a person is booked into jail. The sheriffâs office assigns them whatâs called a âgallery numberâ which stays with the person forever, no matter how many times he or she is arrested.
Marion Superior Court Administrator Emily VanOsdol said for some reason, Hellams was assigned two different gallery numbers for his two separate cases.Â
âThe court receives gallery numbers but does not assign them nor does it ever input them on any documentation, including sentencing documents,â VanOsdol said in a statement. âAnytime that a gallery number is generated on any court document that gallery number is what was sent to the court.â
When Hellamsâ drug case was dismissed, he was released under the gallery number assigned to that case. However, he shouldâve been held until he could be sent to the Indiana Department of Corrections to serve his sentence.Â
âThe more individuals that are mistakenly released, and this is two in two weeks, the greater we might wonder how much is this happening,â said IU Law Professor Jody Madeira. âHow effective are these, whether itâs a software program or a checklist system?â
In a statement, the sheriffâs office said they released Hellams âproperlyâ based on the information they had at the time.Â
Hellams was re-arrested on Tuesday after being out and about for three weeks.
Hellams is the second individual who has been accidentally released from jail in Marion County in the last two weeks. Kevin Mason â a suspected murderer who allegedly shot and killed a man in Minnesota in 2021 â was accidentally let out of the Adult Detention Center on Sept. 13.
Police took Mason into custody on Sept. 11 and released him two days later. Mason was apprehended by United States Marshals Wednesday afternoon.
Madeira says these mistakes jeopardize public safety and believes a full review needs to take place.Â
âThis isnât some prison scheme like the Shawshank Redemption where thereâs an elaborate escape plan,â Madeira said. âYou canât just have one check on the system, itâs a system that requires many layers of different checks.â
There is a group called the âMarion County Identity Groupâ which is comprised of all the players in the countyâs criminal justice system that specifically deal with these issues.Â
The sheriffâs office said this incident will be referred to that committee to be fully investigated.Â