Victim of mistaken identity held in state hospital for years files 2nd lawsuit

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The man who was locked up for someone else’s crime and forced to take psychiatric medicine for nearly three years has filed a second lawsuit, this time in state court.

Joshua Spriestersbach’s recent case accuses the state public defender’s office of legal malpractice.

The office represented him in 2017 when Spriestersbach was arrested for a probation violation.

But Spriestersbach wasn’t on probation.

The arresting Honolulu police officer misidentified him as Thomas Castleberry, a convicted thief and drug user who was not even in Hawaii at the time.

Spriestersbach was held under Castleberry’s name at the Oahu Community Correctional Center and then the Hawaii State Hospital.

There, he was forced to take psychiatric medication and was not allowed to leave, according to the court records.

The state lawsuit alleges that the public defender’s office “acted with malice in that they deliberately and negligently” ignored and took no action to his repeated and easily verifiable assertions of innocence for more than two years.”

Alexander Silvert, a retired federal public defender, explained, “It’s kind of like an ineffective assistance of council claim.”

Spriestersbach already has a federal lawsuit pending that was filed in 2021.

That case accuses various government agencies and officers of civil rights violations and malicious prosecution.

Federal court records said no one took the steps to check his identity, using fingerprints or other databases, and he was brushed off as being delusional when he insisted that he was not Castleberry.

Silvert said the two cases can move forward simultaneously because they focus on different government agencies and people.

No trial date has been set in either lawsuit.

The state attorney general’s office, which represents state agencies in court cases, declined to comment on the new case citing pending litigation.

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