A Colorado convict sent back to prison after being mistakenly released 90 years early will appeal his sentence, his attorney said Tuesday, claiming it was cruel and unusual punishment to put him back behind bars after he started a family and reformed his life.
The move came a day after Rene Lima-Marin made his first public comments about the case, saying he was unaware of the error that set him free for six years.
“I never thought that this would happen,” he said Monday from prison.
Lima-Marin, now 35, was convicted in 2000 on multiple counts of robbery, kidnapping and burglary after he and another man robbed two Colorado video stores at gunpoint in September 1998. A judge issued him back-to-back sentences for a total of 98 years.
But a court clerk mistakenly wrote in Lima-Marin’s file that the sentences were to run concurrently. Thus, Lima-Marin was released on parole in 2008. He got a job, got married and had a son before authorities realized the mistake in January and sent him back to prison.
“To give a man this false sense of hope and allow him to create a family and give birth to child and believe he could lead a normal life as a father and a husband and to then snatch him away from that is extremely cruel,” Orlando attorney Patrick Megaro said.
Prosecutors have said that Lima-Marin was fully aware of the clerical error and never notified authorities as he set about building his life. Rich Orman, Arapahoe County senior deputy district attorney, said Tuesday that the "just" sentence would survive an appeal and that Lima-Marin's attorney is "wrong on the law."
“They put a gun to the back of my head and said, ‘This is where you’re going to die,’” said Shane Ashurst, who worked at the store. “Even though this happened a long time ago, it’s not something you ever forget. You’re going to live with it the rest of your life, and he should live with it the rest of his life.”
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After Lima-Marin was released, he became active in church. He married his former girlfriend and helped raise her son, who is 7. They had a second son, now 4.
“By putting me back in prison, you are now sentencing three people who have nothing to do with this,” Lima-Marin said of his wife and children.
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