LUCAS COUNTY (WTOL) - Don Ellis, the man who tricked Lucas County sheriff's deputies into releasing him last week, is once again behind bars, police said.
"The FBI is very happy that we were able to apprehend Mr. Ellis, bring him to justice, and alleviate the concerns that Toledo citizens had about this dangerous individual being on the loose," said FBI supervisory special agent Phil Dieble.
The FBI's fugitive task force apprehended Ellis approximately 10:30 p.m. Monday in the 3000 block of Eight Mile Road in Detroit, Dieble said.
"Our task forces had a perimeter set up on this hotel," Dieble said. "Mr. Ellis did not know he was being watched."
"I think that it speaks highly to the people that the sheriff has working for him here, that they were able to block out all of the other commentary and focus on getting this person, this threat back into custody," said Capt. Matt Luettke of the Lucas County Sheriff's Office.
The Lucas County sheriff's office coming to terms after being fooled... and making policy changes to ensure this once-in-a-blue-moon incident... doesn't happen again.
"We addressed the fact that there weren't some photos taken originally when he came in and passed on to our staff upstairs," said Capt. Richard Grove of the Lucas County sheriff office's internal affairs bureau. "So now we've made the change that all photos will be taken before the inmates are transferred upstairs so the officers upstairs have that available to them."
Dieble said there are no hard feelings against the Lucas County sheriff's office for the mistake.
"Our relationship with Lucas County has not changed. We have the utmost confidence in Sheriff Tharp," Dieble said. "This is a one-time incident, you know, things happen."
"We do a great job 90 percent of the time, but sometimes we fall short," Grove said.
