Man institutionalized due to mistaken identity will get $975K settlement

In a case of mistaken identity, a man who was wrongfully arrested and detained at a Hawaiʻi state psychiatric hospital for two years is set to receive a $975,000 payout from the City and County of Honolulu.

Joshua Spriestersbach had been living on the street in 2017 when police arrested him for crimes committed by another man named Thomas Castleberry.

During two previous interactions, police misidentified Spriestersbach and then did not correct the record, according to a lawsuit Spriestersbach filed in 2021. Those errors led to the eventual 2017 arrest that resulted in his yearslong detention.

Spriestersbach also may receive a $200,000 settlement from the state to resolve legal claims against the Hawaiʻi public defender’s office.

In 2011, Spriestersbach was homeless and sleeping at Kawananakoa Middle School in Punchbowl when an officer woke him up and asked for his name. Spriestersbach would not give a first name, his lawsuit says, and gave only his grandfather’s last name: Castleberry.

The officer found a 2009 warrant for Thomas Castleberry and arrested Spriestersbach for the outstanding warrant.

Spriestersbach told the officer he was not Thomas Castleberry, the complaint says, but the officer arrested him anyway. Spriestersbach didn’t show up to his court date, and the court later dropped the bench warrant for him. But the mistaken identity followed him.

In 2015, an HPD officer approached Spriestersbach after hours in ʻAʻala Park, where he had been sleeping. He initially refused to give his name to that officer but eventually did so, the complaint says. Thomas Castleberry was listed as an alias, and there was a warrant out for his arrest, the complaint says, but because the officers took Spriestersbach’s fingerprints this time, they confirmed he was not Castleberry.

Still, the complaint says, they did not update the police department’s records.

On the day of 2017 arrest, Spriestersbach was waiting for food outside Safe Haven in Chinatown. He fell asleep on the sidewalk while waiting in line, his complaint says, and an HPD officer woke him up and arrested him for Casteberry’s outstanding warrant.

Spriestersbach spent four months at Oʻahu Community Correctional Center and more than two years at the Hawaiʻi State Hospital before being released on Jan. 17, 2020. Police officers, public defenders and health workers had had the chance to correct the mistake that led to Spriesterbach’s detention and custody, according to his complaint, but nobody did so.

“Prior to January 2020, not a single person acted on the available information to determine that Joshua was telling the truth – that he was not Thomas R. Castleberry,” the complaint says. “Instead, 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’s crimes.”

The complaint says city practices failing to properly identify homeless and mentally ill people – as well as failing to correct mistaken records that result in their arrests – were “the moving force” behind Spriesterbach’s arrest and detention.

Spriestersbach’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment late Wednesday afternoon. HPD and the mayor’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.

A majority of Honolulu council members approved the settlement on Wednesday afternoon, though council member Val Okimoto voted to approve it with reservations.

This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.