{"id":558873,"date":"2026-04-01T20:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/558873\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:43:14","slug":"innocent-man-gets-975k-payout-after-hes-mistakenly-locked-in-psych-hospital-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/558873\/","title":{"rendered":"Innocent man gets $975k payout after he&#8217;s mistakenly locked in psych hospital for years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An innocent man has been awarded a $975,000 payout after he was <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/08\/04\/wrong-man-locked-up-nearly-3-years-due-to-mistaken-identity\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wrongfully arrested and thrown<\/a> in a Hawaii psychiatric hospital for years.<\/p>\n<p>Joshua Spriestersbach, who was sleeping on the streets at the time, ended up in the psych ward after cops arrested him for drug crimes committed by another man named Thomas Castleberry back in 2017, court records show.<\/p>\n<p>The mistaken identity saga unfolded years earlier when Spriestersbach, now 54, was found sleeping at Kawananakoa Middle School in Punchbowl\u00a0and gave cops the wrong name.<\/p>\n<p>Joshua Spriestersbach, 54, was awarded a $975,000 payout after he was wrongfully arrested and thrown in a Hawaii psychiatric hospital for years. AP<\/p>\n<p>Spriestersbach, who has schizophrenia, wouldn\u2019t give a first name but gave his grandfather\u2019s last name: Castleberry. <\/p>\n<p>After running the name, the cop found an outstanding 2009 warrant for Thomas Castleberry, who was wanted on a spate of drug charges. <\/p>\n<p>Spriestersbach was nabbed but later failed to show up to court. <\/p>\n<p>Years later, Spriestersbach was awoken again by cops outside the Safe Haven shelter in Chinatown and arrested on the outstanding warrant after Castleberry\u2019s name was listed as one of his aliases. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite repeatedly insisting he wasn\u2019t Castleberry, Spriestersbach spent four months at O\u02bbahu Community Correctional Center and more than two years at the Hawaii State Hospital before he was released in January 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPrior to January 2020, not a single person acted on the available information to determine that Joshua was telling the truth \u2013 that he was not Thomas R. Castleberry,\u201d a lawsuit filed by him states.<\/p>\n<p>Spriestersbach, who has schizophrenia, was sleeping on the street at the time of his arrest. AP<\/p>\n<p>Spriestersbach spent over two years at the Hawaii State Hospital. AP<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead, they determined that Joshua was delusional and incompetent just because he refused to admit that he was Thomas R. Castleberry and refused to acknowledge Thomas R. Castleberry\u2019s crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Honolulu City Council approved the $975,000 settlement for Spriestersbach at a meeting last week. <\/p>\n<p>He also may receive a $200,000 settlement\u00a0from the state\u00a0to resolve legal claims against the Hawaii\u2019s public defender\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>Hawaii police and the mayor\u2019s office didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>With Post wires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An innocent man has been awarded a $975,000 payout after he was wrongfully arrested and thrown in a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[3071,11639,97,12589,259,260,142949,194],"class_list":{"0":"post-558873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-hawaii","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-homelessness","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth","14":"tag-mistaken-identity","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}