FORT THOMAS, Ky. — A man mistakenly released from a Georgia prison while serving three life sentences was arrested Wednesday night in Fort Thomas, the Georgia Department of Corrections announced on Twitter.
Tony Munoz-Mendez, 31, was convicted of rape and child molestation in 2015. According to the Washington Post, he was “released in error” from Rogers State Prison on Friday.
“They need to rethink how they’re handling their security, and how they let people out by mistake,” Gwinnett County prosecutor John Warr, who helped convict Munoz-Mendez in 2015, told the Post. “It’s incomprehensible.”
Warr said he had learned about Munoz-Mendez’s release online two days after it happened.
The error began a nationwide manhunt that ended in Fort Thomas, where U.S Marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested him.
Munoz-Mendez appeared via video in front of a judge in Campbell County, Ky. Thursday morning. The judge said Munoz-Mendez would be extradited back to Georgia, and Munoz-Mendez agreed to the extradition.
Authorities did not immediately provide details about where Munoz-Mendez had been located, how investigators found him or why he had traveled to Kentucky.
