Man labelled 'delusional', put in mental hospital for refusing to admit he was someone else; wins massive payout

A man in the US spent two years in a mental hospital after being misidentified as someone else. Joshua Spriestersbach, 55, was detained at a Hawaii state psychiatric hospital after being picked up from the street in 2017. He was arrested by the police for a crime committed by a man named Thomas Castleberry. Spriestersbach filed a lawsuit for wrongful detention in 2021. According to court filings cited in the lawsuit, Castleberry had been in jail in Alaska since 2016 at this time. It also states that the police had already misidentified him twice before, but did not correct the records, and so he was eventually taken in in 2017. He is now set to receive a $975,000 payout from the City and County of Honolulu. The state might also offer him a $200,000 settlement to resolve legal claims against the Hawaii public defender's office. In the lawsuit, Spriestersbach alleged false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process and intentional infliction of emotional distress stemming from the ordeal.

Misidentified twice by Honolulu officials

The first time the police mistook him for Thomas Castleberry was in 2011. He was sleeping at Kawananakoa Middle School in Punchbowl when an officer woke him and asked for his name. He gave only his grandfather's last name: Castleberry. The officer found a 2009 warrant for Thomas Castleberry and arrested him, despite his telling the officer that he was not Thomas Castleberry. He did not show up to his court date, and the bench warrant was later dropped. Then, in 2015, an HPD officer approached Spriestersbach at a park where he was sleeping. He gave his name, and the officer found that Thomas Castleberry was listed as an alias and that there was an arrest warrant in his name. However, this time they took Spriestersbach's fingerprints, which confirmed he was not Castleberry. But the official records at the department were not updated.

Put in hospital and forced to take psychiatric medicine

He alleged in the lawsuit that despite his fingerprints and photographs being with the authorities, they did not use that information. He was arrested in 2017 while waiting for food outside Safe Haven in Chinatown. He had fallen asleep and was arrested. At the time, he assumed it was for restrictions linked to sitting or lying on public sidewalks in Honolulu. Spriestersbach spent four months at O'ahu Community Correctional Center and was later taken to the Hawaii State Hospital, where he spent two years. Here, he was forced to take psychiatric medication, according to filings from the Hawaii Innocence Project. He was released on January 17, 2020.

He states in the complaint that even after he provided his identification, officials did not believe him. Instead, they said he was "delusional and incompetent just because he refused to admit that he was Thomas R. Castleberry."