Murder suspect one of four inmates mistakenly released from jail

A man accused of murder in a 2010 Baldwin Park gang shooting was one of four jail inmates the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department mistakenly released in the last year, officials revealed Tuesday.

The Sheriff’s Department launched an investigation that discovered that missing paperwork resulted in the suspect’s release, spokesman Steve Whitmore said. He said the department subsequently noted understaffing in the clerical operations and made a decision to hire more clerical staff and add an additional supervisor to the process.

The department is also implementing a color-coding system to note high-risk inmates.

Johnny Mata was set free last month from the Sheriff’s Department’s Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office had filed murder charges against Mata, but a processing clerk had not entered a “hold” for Mata in the computer.

Mata had appeared in a Pomona courtroom, where an attempted murder charge was dismissed because authorities planned to combine it with a murder charge filed against Mata on March 26, according to Whitmore.

Mata was returned from the Pomona courthouse to the Inmate Reception Center, where on April 4 he was processed and released because the sheriff’s system showed no pending charges, Whitmore said.

“He is the first high-risk inmate to be released wrongly,” Whitmore said. “Four inmates have been wrongly released this year and none of the others are high-risk and all [three] have been recaptured.”

The department’s Major Crimes Unit has been searching for Mata.

“Obviously, we are concerned where he is,” Whitmore said.

Nicole Nishida, a department spokeswoman, said it did not immediately reveal Mata’s release because the unit was chasing leads to find him. The department opted to go public when it exhausted those leads, she said. Sheriff’s officials have now notified “all of Los Angeles County law enforcement” to help them locate Mata, she added.

Nishida said Mata has been charged in the killing of David DeAnda, who was shot Dec. 24, 2010, in Baldwin Park. According to a sheriff’s news release, DeAnda was standing with two other people in a driveway when a man approached and shot him several times.

Mata has brown hair and brown eyes. He is 6-foot-1 and weighs 197 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to call sheriff’s homicide detectives at (323) 890-5500.

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