ThrobbingHood
“I’m Sorry for 2025”
Man mistaken for rapist spent months in jail with actual suspect due to last name error, lawsuit says.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A civil trial date has been set for a man who said he was held in Shelby County Jail for months because of a typo in a last name.
An extra letter added to a suspect's last name caused Anthony Robertson to spend four months at 201 Poplar, after spending a month in an Ohio jail.
An arrest warrant was filed for Robertson, confusing him with Anthony Roberson, a man sitting at the Shelby County Jail on rape charges with a bond of more than $1 million.
"All I could remember is saying, 'No sir. No, sir. Y'all got to have the wrong person. That's not me,'" Robertson told FOX13 after his release from 201 Poplar.
After his release, Robertson filed a lawsuit against Shelby County and his former public defender. FOX13 Investigates obtained an amended version of that lawsuit. It gives a clearer timeline of how Robertson was taken into custody.
According to that timeline, a warrant was issued for the arrest of rape suspect Anthony Roberson on October 13, 2023. Kansas City Police arrested Roberson five days later.
The day after that, Memphis Police officers interviewed him in Kansas City. On October 23, Roberson was identified in a photo lineup as the suspect.
On November 15, Roberson admitted to police that he assaulted three women and also robbed several ACE Cash Express businesses on Winchester Road, according to the amended complaint filed in court.
That means Roberson was already in the Shelby County Jail on February 6, 2024, when the family of Anthony Robertson got a call from a Shelby County deputy telling the family that they were looking for Robertson. The United States Marshals Service arrested Robertson in Ohio on February 15. He was extradited from Ohio to Shelby County on March 2, 2024. Then, he spent months in the same jail as Anthony Roberson.
"It was just, like, detrimental," Robertson told FOX13 in October 2024. "It was like every day I got up. Every day I expected to lose my life, you know, on some charges that had absolutely nothing to do with me."
The lawsuit says that Robertson "began to experience the effects of his diminishing health, as well as stigmas and/or fears associated with being charged with aggravated rape and especially aggravated kidnapping, including extortion in exchange for providing for his safety while incarcerated."
Robertson's attorney and a judge admitted that he was the wrong defendant on July 4. His release came after, according to the lawsuit, Roberson "was accurately provided on the indictment sheet by said ADA but was inaccurately recorded in the Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk’s file, which allegedly led to the issue of a warrant and subsequent arrest of Plaintiff as the wrong person; and confirmed that Plaintiff was released from custody on July 4, 2024, at 8:30 p.m."
Robertson's lawsuit seeks $5 million from Shelby County for the error. The trial is set for July 2026.
https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/m...cle_e95fd396-9151-4381-9385-1b5bf68b6741.html
