US

Police Arrest The Wrong Man, Drug Him For 2 Years Whenever He Insists That Its Mistaken Identity, Court Documents Say

Photo by MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

Matthew Brooks Contributor
Font Size:

A Hawaiian man was arrested, sequestered at a state hospital and forcibly injected with drugs after being mistaken for someone else, court documents say, according to Hawaii News Now.

Joshua Spriestersbach, 50, was mistaken for Thomas Castleberry, who had an outstanding warrant stemming from a 2006 arrest in Alaska, Hawaii News Now reported. Spriestersbach was homeless at the time and had fallen asleep outside of Safe Haven, a facility for the mentally ill and homeless, and was mistakenly arrested by police, according to the outlet.

“The real Thomas Castleberry had been arrested in 2006. He had been booked in OCCC in 2006. He had been fingerprinted by the police in 2006. He’d been photographed by the police in 2006,” alleged Ken Lawson of the Hawaii Innocence Project. (RELATED: Philly Police Now Required To First Politely Ask Criminals To Please Stop Doing Certain Crimes)

Vedanta Griffith, Spriestersbach’s sister, claimed that “Every time they called him Thomas Castleberry, he’d say my name is Joshua Spriestersbach. They would use that against him, saying he’s delusional.” Spriestersbach was forcibly injected with drugs in accordance with a judge’s order, especially when he did not attend drug rehabilitation treatment that was meant for Castleberry, Hawaii News Now reported.

Griffith also claimed that she had called hospitals and jails all over Hawaii, not realizing he was being held under a different name. Spriestersbach ended up spending 2 years and 8 months at the facility before people started to believe him and he was released, according to Hawaii News Now.

Spriestersbach is currently staying with his sister in Vermont, the outlet noted.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel