A Florida dad missed the birth of his second child after he was wrongly imprisoned for two weeks in a whirlwind case of mistaken identity.
Samuel Vasquez, a 29-year-old father from Jacksonville, was eagerly awaiting the birth of his daughter when he was cuffed on assault charges and locked away in the Duval County Jail on Sept. 12.
He was soon extradited to Polk County — just over 200 miles away — to face crimes he never committed in a city completely alien to him.
Meanwhile, 41-year-old Samuel Vazquez, who was wanted for allegedly assaulting his ex-girlfriend and her dog outside of a grocery store in Polk County, was walking free.
A one-letter discrepancy in their last names put the expecting father wrongfully behind bars for nearly two weeks as he pleaded his innocence to anyone who would listen.
Other than their names, the pair shared no other similarities. Their ages, dates of birth, heights, weights, and general appearance were starkly different.
Vasquez spent 13 days behind bars before his attorneys with the Joshi Law Firm were able to prove authorities nabbed the wrong guy.
“An innocent man was arrested; an innocent man went to jail. In 25 years, I’ve never seen a more sloppy investigation than this – ever,” Rajan Joshi, a senior partner at Joshi Law Firm, told Fox 35.
To make matters worse, security cameras at the grocery store apparently caught Vazquez in the act, but authorities were still convinced they’d grabbed the right guy multiple counties north of the alleged crime scene.
Vasquez also had no prior criminal history, while Vazquez was reportedly out on probation when he allegedly assaulted his former flame.
“Law enforcement, all they had to do was look – see the face of the real perpetrator and compare it to the person they were pointing the finger at, and they would know that they had the wrong person,” Jonathan Vega, an associate at Joshi Law Firm, told the outlet.
So, the attorneys did what the cops apparently failed to follow through on. They went to Vazquez’s ex, whom he allegedly assaulted, and simply showed her a photo of Vasquez’s fresh mugshot.
“I show her a photo – the mugshot of my client – and she tells me, I’ve never seen that man before,” Vega told the outlet.
All charges against Vasquez were swiftly dropped and he was released from custody. Soon after, the other Vazquez was booked in Charlotte County and is currently awaiting extradition to Polk County, according to jail records.
The Post reached out to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department, whose deputies originally arrested Vasquez, for comment.
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