Axel Torres

Kissimmee police are looking for a man wanted for the strangulation and imprisonment of a 45-year-old Kissimmee woman after the man was let out of jail prematurely.

On Nov. 10, a woman came to the Kissimmee Police Department to report domestic violence against her. The woman alleged that Axel U. Torres, 47, struck her several times with a broomstick the day before, and when she attempted to leave, he held her down and tried to strangle her.

The woman was able to get away the morning after the alleged abuse occurred and then contacted police. Kissimmee police then filed an affidavit of prosecution summery on Torres with the State Attorney's Office for Orange and Osceola counties.

On Nov. 12, Torres was arrested on a warrant filed for contempt of the court for failing to pay collections court as well as nonsupport in a separate child support case, according to court and jail records. He was transported to the Osceola County Jail.

On Nov. 13, Kissimmee police officers delivered the new charges against Torres, including aggravated battery, false imprisonment and domestic battery by strangulation, to the jail. The new charges, which would not have allowed him to bond out, should have trumped the old charges, Kissimmee Police Department spokeswoman Stacie Miller said.

However, Torres was released that day, according to jail records.

“(The charges) didn't get updated in the computer and he was able to bond out on the original charges,” Miller said.

Three Osceola County employees – one corrections officer in booking and two jail clerks, in the jail’s central processing unit – were put on paid administrative leave while the county conducts an internal investigation into the mistake, county spokesman Larry Krause said. The paperwork on the new charges made it to booking, where a hold, indicating that Torres should not be released, was put in Torres' file, Krause said. However, the paperwork didn't make it back to the records department, he said.

"The clerk, not having the paperwork to back up the hold, made an error in judgment and assumed it was a mistake," Krause said.

All three employees, after receiving counseling, are back at work, though one of the clerks has been moved from processing release paperwork to inmate intake paperwork, with all entered data to be reviewed by a supervisor, Krause said.

Torres, who was convicted in a previous domestic battery case in 2005, was subsequently released. Kissimmee detectives have since obtained a warrant for Torres and continue to look for him.