PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia native who had been facing the possibility of more prison time after federal officials said he was mistakenly released more than a dozen years ago has been credited with time served.
A federal judge on Thursday granted a joint motion by prosecutors and attorneys for Demetrius Anderson calling for his prison sentence to be deemed satisfied, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“The parties agree that given Anderson’s time at liberty without any arrests or criminal convictions, there would be no significant interest served by requiring him to serve a three-year period of supervised release at this time,” the motion said.
U.S. Attorney William McSwain said circumstances of the case — including the length of time elapsed since his release, his efforts to rebuild his life, and the fact that the government wasn’t blameless because it took so long to discover the error — led prosecutors to conclude that no purpose would be served by sending Anderson back to prison.
“We’re happy that Mr. Anderson has turned his life around, and he deserves to be a free man at this point,” McSwain added. Defense attorney Michael Dolan said Anderson was “ecstatic.”
Anderson, 43, who grew up in Philadelphia, was arrested last month by federal marshals at his apartment in New Haven, Connecticut, after officials said an internal audit revealed he had been mistakenly freed in 2006 and owed another 16 months behind bars.
Anderson had been serving a three-year sentence on forgery counts unrelated to federal charges he faced in Philadelphia. In the original case, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to using counterfeit money at stores in Philadelphia and New Jersey and trying to use someone else’s identity to buy cars in Philadelphia. The term for that case was supposed to begin after he finished his sentence in Connecticut. But after being freed, the Inquirer reported, he built a new life in New Haven, working several jobs and finding what he called a church family.
Earlier this month, Anderson tweeted: “I’m grateful that God worked a miracle to bring this injustice to the light so others can be restored like me.”
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