Man released in error, sent back to prison for life
theGRIO REPORT - Earlier this year, Rene Lima-Marin was ordered to return to prison to serve the remainder of what authorities say should have been a 98-year-sentence. Lima-Marin had been released prematurely due to a clerical error...
Rene Lima-Marin was released in 2008 after serving 10 years for multiple robbery, kidnapping and burglary charges.
He got married, had two kids and bought a house.
Earlier this year, he was ordered to return to prison to serve the remainder of what authorities say should have been a 98-year-sentence. Lima-Marin had been released prematurely due to a clerical error.
This was all news to Lima-Marin.
“I acknowledge the fact that I did something wrong,” Lima-Marin told KDVR’s Tammy Vigil in his first interview since returning to Kit Carson Correctional Center in January. “I take responsibility for the fact that I did something wrong. But I also believe that I completed the punishment.”
In 2000, Lima-Marin and another man were convicted for robbing two Aurora, Colorado, video stores, according to the Associated Press. One of the robberies involved video store employees being asked to go to a backroom at gunpoint.
No one was killed during the robberies, and Lima-Marin tells KDVR the rifle he used in the attacks was not loaded.
While serving his initial sentence, Lima-Marin said he was told by his appeals lawyer his prison time would only total a maximum of 16 years.
As KDVR reports, the appeals lawyer Lima-Marin is referencing had the wrong information.
In May, a Missouri man was freed by a judge in the midst of his 13-year prison sentence for armed robbery. Mike Anderson’s sentence was supposed to start in 2000, but due to a clerical error, he wasn’t brought in by authorities until 2013.
During the time he was “free,” Â Anderson became a master carpenter and started a family. Nearly one year into his delayed sentence, a judge decided he had rehabilitated his life, and he was therefore released.
Lima-Marin said he hopes for a similar fate.
“That’s all I want people to see, is that I’m not that guy,” Lima-Marin said. “I don’t deserve 98 years. I deserve the time I did.”
KDVRÂ reports Lima-Marin will be eligible for parole in 2054, when he’s 75.
