A Rikers Island inmate is back behind bars after he was accidentally released from the jail Monday when he impersonated another detainee set to be discharged, the Daily News has learned.
Josiah Prysock managed to escape from the Otis Bantum Correctional Center by using another inmate’s identification number and duping several staffers along the way, multiple sources said.
City Correction Department spokesman Jason Kersten said Prysock turned himself in Tuesday night, and the department’s Correction Intelligence Bureau worked with the NYPD to persuade him to surrender.
He’s the fourth inmate known to have accidentally walked out of Rikers Island this year.
Prysock pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and assault last week, according to his attorney Victor Schorr, who said he’d heard nothing about his client’s accidental release.
Court records show Prysock is scheduled to be sentenced July 15 in Bronx Supreme Court.
The episode is the latest in a series of so-called “erroneous discharges” by the city Correction Department.
“We’re working with our law enforcement partners to immediately return this individual to custody and conducting a full investigation into how this occurred,” said Peter Thorne, the Correction Department’s deputy commissioner of public information..
Prysock was sprung from the same facility that accused murderer Christopher Buggs was accidentally released from in March following an epic clerical screwup. Buggs was on the lam for more than a month before authorities captured him in mid-April.
Shooting suspect Nikim Meekins was also mistakenly released in March after a glaring error from a Bronx court clerk, while deadbeat dad and golf pro James Reino was let out in April amid confusion over his multiple cases in matrimonial, family and criminal courts.