NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — Get out of jail free.
A man accused in a road rage incident in Las Vegas, was mistakenly released from the Newport News City Jail, and now authorities are again searching for him.
So how did this happen? And what is the alleged victim saying?
The Newport News City Jail did what the court ordered, and the Newport News court made a ruling based on a decision made in Nevada not to extradite Jose Soriano.
That mistake not to extradite was made in Nevada, not here, and the victim is frustrated by that.
“Why didn’t anyone call me and let me know? Why was I not notified? I am a single mother,” said Sarah Goolsby.
On June 9, after a minor fender bender in Nevada, and about to exchange information, Jose Soriano allegedly hit Goolsby in the face with his closed fist.
“He grabs my phone, and he just starts punching me into the back of my vehicle,” she said.
Then she got up and went back to the car, where she was punched again.
“He is just wailing on me,” she said, “and then he drags me through the brush on the median. I was disoriented.”
Soriano repainted his car and went on the run. When he was arrested Aug. 12 in Newport News his beard was gone.
On Aug. 19, the “fugitive felon without a warrant” charge is dismissed, and he was free to get out of jail the next day.
Goolsby only found that out by checking on the case status Monday.
“I learned case dismissed,” she said, “that someone dropped the ball in the County District Attorney’s office.”
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson took full responsibility, telling WAVY’s NBC affiliate in Las Vegas that “the district attorney’s office made a mistake by not agreeing to extradite him when we should have, but it doesn’t preclude us from continuing our prosecution and he will eventually be brought to justice.”
In the meantime, Goolsby fears for her life.
“I have two children, and I have plastered this man’s face all over the news and social media to find him,” she said. “We get him caught. He knows who I am. He knows my name. And now, you know, he thinks the case is dismissed.”
Goolsby said he has been assured by the U.S. Marshals Service that the search is on for Soriano.
But it is frustrating for Goolsby.
First they had Soriano, and now they don’t.
