The state of Washington is rounding up former prison inmates who were accidentally released early because of a computer glitch.
Karen Weidner was looking forward to Christmas 2015. After four years behind bars for assault with a deadly weapon, her husband was getting out.
“I had planned a really nice Christmas for my husband since he was coming home,” she said.
She picked him up on December 10. But this week he got a phone call.
“Bob started crying and said ‘you must be kidding,’” she said.
It was the Washington Department of Corrections saying there’d been a mistake. He had another 40 days on his sentence and needed to come back.
“So we opened our gifts over tears the night before we had to take him in,” Weidner said.
The next morning Weidner dropped her husband off at the local Community Corrections office.
“And they took him from me and put him in cuffs and put him in the car and took him back to Monroe,” she said.
Weidner said her husband shouldn’t have to pay for a mistake the state made in calculating his sentence.
“Yes, I would say the Grinch stole the Christmas,” she said.
Most inmates who were let out early won’t be re-arrested. Only those who haven’t been out long enough to earn credit for the days still left on their sentences.
