The El Paso County Sheriff's Office said it didn't drop the ball in the case of Cesar De La O. 

De La O has been arrested twice on a warrant that was meant for Colorado inmate Lorenzo Silva. Silva was able to get enough of De La O’s personal information and give it to police during an arrest in El Paso that the justice system in El Paso believed that Silva was in fact De La O.

De La O came into the KFOX14 studios two weeks ago asking for help. Not only had he spent five days in jail because of Silva’s warrant, his face had been plastered all over the news for being arrested on charges of indecency with a child.

El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles said the news story started a chain of events.

"When the story hit, one of our deputies in the warrant section decided to check back with Colorado because we knew that he had been in jail before the arrest warrant,” Wiles said. “We discovered that he was there (Colorado prison) and we put a detainer on him."

KFOX14 News confirmed with the Colorado Department of Corrections that Silva is in prison on charges of assault on a child and is not eligible for parole until July of 2013.

So why did the Sheriff's Office have an active warrant out for Silva, and why did they not know that he’s already in prison?

Wiles said that when the warrant was issued, EPCSO checked all known addresses for Silva.

"And then we also checked records, including the Bureau of Prisons, which is where he (Silva) was in Colorado,” Wiles said. “But he wasn't in prison at that time."

Wiles said that Silva had just been released from prison when the warrant was put out and then he was arrested again.

"It's really up to the agency that takes custody in regards to their policy of how they check people," Wiles said.

Wiles said that the Colorado Dept. of Corrections should have found the Texas warrant once Silva was re-arrested.

"I don't know what check they did but they never caught the warrant here," Wiles said.

Now the warrant will have De La O’s name removed from it and Silva, upon his release, will be transferred to El Paso.

De La O could not be contacted for comment on Tuesday.

If you have a story that you feel deserves media attention, contact Ric Dupont at ric.dupont@kfoxtv.com.