THE SUSPECT REALLY WAS SOMEONE ELSE

Pr. George's Jailed Man For 10 Days In Identity Mix-Up

An Upper Marlboro man who was jailed in the Prince George's County for 10
days even though he was innocent of any wrongdoing was apparently the victim
of a stolen identity scam perpetrated by a member of his family, authorities
said yesterday.

Curtis Jeffery Williams, 21, was arrested in Forestville on Aug. 6 by Prince
George's police after officers discovered during a routine check that
Orlando police had obtained a fugitive warrant for him. Although Williams
protested that he was innocent and said there must have been some mix-up, he
was jailed as authorities began proceedings to extradite him to Florida.

Williams spent 10 days in jail without bond until Prince George's officials
determined that he was telling the truth: that he was not the man wanted on
drug charges in Orlando and that he was a victim of mistaken identity. He
was released from jail Monday.

"I'm mad that it took them that long to figure it out," Williams said
yesterday. "If my mother hadn't called so many people and if I didn't have
money for a lawyer, I'd still be in jail right now. Nobody cared."

Sgt. Bill Ament, a spokesman for the Prince George's sheriff's department,
called the incident unfortunate, but he said deputies moved as quickly as
possible to straighten things out when it became apparent they had the wrong
man.

Ament said the sheriff's department received a warrant for Williams's arrest
July 15 from the Orange County Sheriff's Department in Orlando, which
reported that Williams was a fugitive wanted on charges of marijuana
possession and resisting arrest. The warrant listed Williams's name, birth
date and an old home address in Forestville.

But Florida authorities were really looking for a relative of Williams--a
relative who passed himself off as Williams when he was arrested in Orlando
in April, according to Williams's family. The relative is not in custody.

Ament said it took several days to sort out the case because Orlando
officials were slow to send the fingerprints and photograph of the man they
were after. Once it became clear that the fingerprints didn't match, he
said, Williams was released.

He said such mistaken-identity cases are highly unusual. "It's not
unheard-of, but in those rare cases in which it does occur, there is usually
some kind of connection" between the innocent person and the real suspect,
he said.

Anthony Martin, a Greenbelt lawyer who represents Williams, said the
sheriff's department and other court officials took too long to admit they
had made a mistake.

"I'm not saying the people up here acted in bad faith," he said. "But the
government should have figured out fairly early on that they had the wrong guy."