FROM THE "CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE" FILE:

The Lakeland Ledger reported the update on this story today; it was really their original story on July 3 that started getting the ball rolling on this...

Joseph Lehr is originally from Connecticut, and moved to Winter Haven five years ago. A week before Christmas 2002, just before he and his family were about to turn in for the night, FBI agents and police officers arrived with guns drawn and a fugitive warrant from his home state charging him with the robbery of a woman at knifepoint at a Bridgeport train station earlier that year.
Lehr spent nearly four months in the Polk County Jail, even though co-workers and time records confirm that when the crime was committed nearly 1,200 miles away he was at his job as a deli salesperson in a Winter Haven Publix supermarket. The only link Connecticut authorities had remotely tying Lehr to the crime was being picked in a photo lineup by a security officer and Metro train conductor. They requested, and received, a Florida governor's warrant requesting extradition in March, 2003, but the felony charges were eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Remarkabily, though, Detective Sgt. John Rizzitelli of the Metro Transportation Authority in Connecticut and New York still thinks Lehr is guilty.

"We think he's our guy. No other suspects were ever pursued for the crime," Rizzitelli said. "The evidence wasn't strong enough to have him extradited."

But, the detective said, "If he came up here, we would pursue it."

Since his release, Lehr has left his Publix job, but has had some problems seeking new work because some publc records still list his arrest but not his exoneration...including losing a job as a security guard.

Enter Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who has come to Lehr's aid. He has ordered all information regarding his arrest and incarication removed from the jail's Web site and Jail Management System, and has requested that his arrest record here be removed from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's record. State law allows that, with FDLE approval, arrest records of an adult or minor made contrary to the law or in error can be expunged administratively. The sheriff has also said that he would follow up with a letter to Governor Bush, and will also send a copy of the request to Lehr and to Connecticut officials.

Thankfully, Mr. Lehr has regained his security guard job.

There are a lot of folks who would not go to the amount of work necessary to help one individual in this way. This says a lot for Sheriff Judd.