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Murder suspect mistakenly released now recaptured

By Shawn Price

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- A murder suspect who was mistakenly released from a Los Angeles jail last week was recaptured on Monday nearly 300 miles away, police said.

Steven Lawrence Wright, 37, was released after a series of errors in his paperwork went unnoticed by three different people at the Los Angeles County jail. He was captured by the FBI and local police at a hotel in Bolder City, Nev. Monday morning without incident. Wright will be returned to California after an extradition hearing.

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No further charges will be filed against him, L.A. County Sheriff's Department spokesman Cmdr. Keith Swensson said.

Wright is a suspected gang member who was convicted for attempted murder last year and was awaiting trial for his role in a 2011 murder in Pasadena. He happened to also be serving five days in the the downtown jail for contempt after recently refusing to testify in a 1997 murder case against two other suspects.

One clerk mixed up the paperwork and released him after his sentence for contempt had been served, but not realizing the other charges. Other jail staff failed to catch the error and the sheriff's department has launched a review of the incident.

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The mistake wasn't caught until the following evening when the district attorney's office called the department asking about Wright.

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