JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Here\u2019s the revised version with all grammar corrected, while preserving the original air quotations:<\/p>\n
A Jacksonville father missed the birth of his child because he was in jail for a crime he didn\u2019t commit. Action News Jax dug into how that Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office mistake almost ruined a man\u2019s life and landed him behind bars here in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
He spent 12 days in jail, missed his daughter\u2019s birth, and could have been deported, even though he\u2019s here legally. It was horrific for him, and now he\u2019s picking up the pieces, determining what to do next.<\/p>\n
Samuel Enrique Toledo Vasquez took a great picture at the birth of his first child. There is no picture of him with his second, though, because attorney Jonathan Vega says it\u2019s because he was behind bars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way that he was able to participate in his daughter\u2019s birth,\u201d attorney Josh Vega says, \u201cwas by being on the phone from the jail listening to his daughter, his baby\u2019s cries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vasquez didn\u2019t want to do an interview after everything that\u2019s happened, but his attorneys say he runs a lawn company in Jacksonville \u2014 so imagine his surprise when he was arrested by JSO on a warrant out of Polk County. The 29-year-old was charged with burglary, grand theft, and domestic assault \u2014 except he didn\u2019t do any of those things.<\/p>\n
According to the victim, the real criminal is 41-year-old Samuel Augusto Vasquez.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have different nationalities,\u201d Vega says, \u201cdifferent country of origin, they have different heights and weights. They have everything, they don\u2019t even look alike.\u201d<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n But somehow, attorney Rajan Joshi says, the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office put the wrong name on the arrest warrant and never showed the victim a mug shot once Vasquez was in custody to confirm it was the right man. It wasn\u2019t until his attorney knocked on her door that they figured it out.<\/p>\n \u201cThe client was fortunate that he had a law firm that was proactive,\u201d he says, \u201cscary is, is that if he hadn\u2019t had such proactive attorneys, he\u2019d probably still be sitting in jail as the process went through.\u201d<\/p>\n The charges were dropped, but Vasquez still couldn\u2019t go home. Even though he\u2019s here legally, ICE put him on a hold, forcing his family to hire an immigration attorney on top of a defense attorney.<\/p>\n \u201cWe assume the police are going to protect the innocent,\u201d Joshi says, \u201cand over here, an innocent person went to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n Vasquez is now putting his life back together and considering a lawsuit against the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office. We reached out to them for comment and didn\u2019t hear back.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Here\u2019s the revised version with all grammar corrected, while preserving the original air quotations: A…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":301583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,5410,7310,153254,8423,425,153255,153259,153258,153257,153256,153253,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,49020],"class_list":{"0":"post-301582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-ice","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-jonathan_vega","14":"tag-jso","15":"tag-local","16":"tag-polk_county","17":"tag-polk_county_polk_county_sheriffs_office","18":"tag-polk_county_sheriffs_office","19":"tag-rajan_joshi","20":"tag-samuel_augusto_vasquez","21":"tag-samuel_enrique_toledo_vasquez","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-vasquez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115370377004801241","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}