Illinois prisoner released accidentally says he told guard there was a mistake

A prisoner at an Illinois correctional centre says he was escorted out of his cell, handed a brown envelope and brought to catch a train last December — all while protesting to the guards that he was supposed to be headed to federal prison.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Walter Redawn Dixon was sentenced to 16 years in prison on a drug conspiracy conviction, which he was supposed to serve after his one-year sentence at the Stateville Correctional Centre in Joliet for aggravated drunk driving. But instead, Dixon was set free.

A paperwork error caused the mix-up, according to the Sun-Times; the state correctional department said its officials didn't receive the order to keep him in custody, while the Cooks County Sheriff's Office that held Dixon first said the state should have known.

Dixon, 33, said he tried to inform the guards they weren't supposed to release him, but they told him to stop talking, the Sun-Times reported.

"He was damn rude to me," Dixon told the newspaper, adding the guards put him in the 'hole' for speaking out. The state correctional department said Dixon lied, stating there is no 'hole' at Stateville.

Nonetheless, Dixon left, enrolled in vocational school and checked in often with his parole officer during his short taste of freedom, until it ended abruptly last week, CBS reported. Police arrested him again and brought him to prison to serve his sentence, according to the broadcaster.

Three other inmates were accidentally released from Cooks County Jail this year.