SOUTH SALT LAKE — A man arrested Monday for allegedly stabbing a woman working at a Maverik convenience store had been mistakenly released early last month from the Salt Lake County Jail, officials confirmed Tuesday.
Edwin Ogando, 33, of Salt Lake City, was arrested Monday after police say he jumped over the counter at Maverik, 3112 S. Redwood Road, and stabbed a 39-year-old woman multiple times with a pocketknife. Two delivery men who happened to be at the store helped rescue the store clerk and trapped Ogando in a back room until police arrived.
The woman was taken to a local hospital and was expected to make a full recovery.
Last month on Sept. 8, Ogando was sentenced to 150 days in jail for waving a knife and causing a disturbance at another Maverik in July. After Monday's stabbing, the Deseret News made an inquiry asking why Ogando was no longer in jail serving that sentence when Monday's stabbing occurred.
The sheriff's office responded with a prepared statement Tuesday saying he had been mistakenly released before his sentence was up.
"On Oct. 9, 2017, Salt Lake County Jail staff initiated a case file review of former prisoner Edwin Ogando after his overnight arrest in a West Valley City police investigation. This review resulted in the identification of a clerical error that resulted in his early release on a previous booking," the statement says.
Sheriff Rosie Rivera said her office has already taken action to make sure the same mistake doesn't happen again. From now on, the person who is entering data into the jail's computer system won't be required to confirm the data, she said. A second person will now be required to do that.
Rivera called the situation an honest and rare mistake at the jail.
"It shows we are policing ourselves," she said. "We did investigate it and make the correction so it won’t happen again."
In July, Ogando pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated assault in one criminal case, and a reduced charge of attempted acquisition of someone else's bank card in another, according to court records.
In the assault case, Ogando went to a Maverik at 414 W. 500 South on May 30 "and began throwing things and destroying multiple parts of the store," according to charging documents. Ogando then pulled out a knife "and began swinging it around in the air as well as cutting himself."
Because Ogando had several cases in the court system at the same time, the judge presiding over the assault case sentenced Ogando — who had already been in jail since May 31 — to 150 days in jail on Sept. 8 with credit for time served. The remaining 49 days were to run concurrent with any other sentence he was serving, according to court records.
But due to a clerical error at the Salt Lake County Jail, Ogando was released the very next day, on Sept. 9.