CLEVELAND, Ohio – An inmate accused of aggravated murder was mistakenly released from the Cuyahoga County Jail after a typographical error caused jailers to let the man go free.
Timothy J. McGinty, who is serving as a visiting judge in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, wrote in a filing Tuesday that he issued a warrant for Amarion Sanders, 22, of Cleveland because of the error. Cleveland police and deputy U.S. marshals have begun searching for him.
A man accused of assault and theft, Antonio Seymore, 35, of Cleveland, was the person who should have been released, as his case was thrown out Monday, records show.
Sanders was being held on a $1 million bond. He was accused of killing Derek Driscoll on Sept. 23, 2023. Sanders was scheduled to go to trial Aug. 19. He has denied the charges.
The error stemmed from the docket numbers of cases. Sanders’ case number was 685908, while Seymore’s was 685909. To complicate the matter, county prosecutors dismissed the case of Seymore on Monday because witnesses failed to show for trial.
Attempts to reach Sanders’ attorney, Patrick Leary and Carl Sullivan, were unsuccessful.
McGinty, a longtime judge and prosecutor, declined to comment Tuesday.
For the past two weeks, he has been handling cases in the courtroom of former Judge Daniel Gaul, who was thrown off the bench in December by the Ohio Supreme Court over his handling of several cases.
Typically, Common Pleas judges and their staffs handle dozens of motions a day for inmates in their courts.