Two Inmates from Marion County Jail Mistakenly Released

Source: (Photo by Jiri Hera/Getty.)

INDIANAPOLIS–Two inmates were mistakenly released in Marion County in the span of eight days, but both have been captured.

One of them was murder suspect Kevin Mason. He was released by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office because of a clerical mistake on September 13. He was caught in Minnesota September 27.

A second inmate, 41-year-old Toriano Hellams, was also accidentally released. He was originally booked into jail on Nov. 14, 2022, on charges that included battery of a police officer and resisting law enforcement.

Hellams was eventually bailed out but booked back into jail less than three months later on unrelated drug charges. He stayed there until he was sentenced on Sept. 5 to two years in prison for attacking the officers. Drug charges against Hellams were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

On the day he was sentenced, he was released from the Marion County Jail on accident. Hellams was re-arrested on Tuesday after being out for three weeks.

When a person is booked into jail, the sheriff’s office assigns them what’s called a “gallery number” which stays with that person forever, no matter how many times he or she is arrested.

In this case, Hellams was assigned two different gallery numbers for his two separate cases, which isn’t supposed to happen.

When Hellams’ drug case was dismissed, he was released under the gallery number assigned to that case. However, he should’ve been held until he could be sent to the Indiana Department of Corrections to serve his sentence.