Man Accidentally Freed Won't Return to Prison

Nov. 9, 2007— -- For the last 16 years, Vith Ly has lived what his lawyers say was an ordinary, quiet life in his adopted hometown of Lowell, Mass. The Cambodian immigrant paid his taxes, worked steadily as a machine operator and computer board manufacturer and raised three children, according to court records.

But there was a problem: Vith Ly was supposed to have been in prison.

Ly, now 46, was sentenced in 1990 to 20 years in prison for assaulting, kidnapping and raping a co-worker. A judge ordered him released after two months while he appealed his conviction.

When his appeal was rejected, Ly should have returned to prison. But because of an "inadvertent error," police and prosecutors never sent him back, and Ly never took it upon himself to surrender.

Since then, Ly has continued to live in Lowell and hasn't tried to avoid the police. As first reported by The Boston Globe, prosecutors only realized Ly never served his prison term -- and tried to send him back -- after police did a routine license plate check earlier this year and arrested him for failing to register as a sex offender, court records state.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled this week that Ly will not have to serve the remainder of his sentence, saying it would be unfair to force him to return to prison. Under sentencing guidelines in effect at the time, Ly would have been eligible for parole after two years.

Reinstating the sentence "after an unexplained delay of 16 years … would violate due process and principles of fundamental fairness," Justice John Greaney wrote for the unanimous court.

The ruling, which cannot be appealed, has angered both the district attorney's office and women's rights activists, who said the unnamed victim in the case has been ignored.

"I find it very disturbing that a sex offender is being released not only without serving his term but within the period of his original sentence," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "This is a very serious crime."