Seventy-six-year-old Gwen Levi served 16 years in prison of a 24-year sentence for conspiracy to sell at least one kilogram of heroin but was released last year and now is back in jail for failing to answer her phone when authorities attempted to reach her.
Levi was reportedly in a computer word-processing class in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor at the time of the call. As of June 12, she is in a Washington, D.C. jail, waiting to be transferred to a federal facility, her attorney Sapna Mirchandani told The Washington Post.
Last year, to prevent prisoners from contracting COVID-19, the Trump administration allowed nearly 4,500 inmates to be released. Seventy-six-year-old Gwen Levi was one of the individuals who qualified for the early dismissal.
“There’s no question she was in class,” Mirchandani said. “As I was told, because she could have been robbing a bank, they’re going to treat her as if she was robbing a bank.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons incident report states that officials found out through her ankle monitor that Levi was not where she was supposed to be.
When she didn’t answer the phone for a few hours, authorities who had been attempting to reach her since labeled Levi’s unapproved trip an “escape.”
“I feel like I was attempting to do all the right things,” Levi said through her attorney. “Breaking rules is not who I am. I tried to explain what happened and to tell the truth. At no time did I think I wasn’t supposed to go to that class. I apologize to my mother and my family for what this is doing to them.”
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A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Kristie A. Breshears, said that bureau staff decides whether or not an inmate should be sent back to “secure custody.”
