Error Led to Colo. Suspect's Early Jail... - ABC News

Evan Ebel, the prime suspect in the shooting death of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements, was released from prison four years early because of a clerical error, court officials said today.

Ebel, 28, was released from a Colorado jail in January.

In 2008, he agreed to a plea deal after assaulting a prison guard at Fremont Correctional Facility. He was supposed to complete a sentence of up to four additional years in prison for that assault, to be served after he completed the eight-year sentence he had been serving since 2005.

"The judge announced a sentence of four years in the Department of Corrections but did not state it was consecutive because it was already required by the terms of the plea agreement," Walter Blair, the judicial district administrator for Colorado's 11th Judicial District, and Chief Judge Charles Barton said in a written statement.

AP Photo/Colorado Department of Corrections

This undated photo released by the Colorado... View Full Size

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"Because the judge did not expressly state that the sentence was consecutive, the court judicial assistant did not include that term in the [court order] that went to the Department of Corrections," the statement said.

When prisons officials believed that Ebel had finished his court-ordered sentence, they released him on Jan 28.

Ebel was on parole from Colorado prisons and was not legally allowed to purchase a weapon. He is believed to have used a gun to kill Clements on March 19 at Clements' Colorado home. He is also believed to be involved in the death of a Domino's delivery man, Nathan Leon, in Denver.

Ebel was then pulled over by Texas authorities two days later and engaged in a high-speed chase and gun battle with them. He was shot and died later at a hospital.

"The court regrets this oversight and extends condolences to the families of Mr. Nathan Leon and Mr. Tom Clements," said the statement signed by Blair and Barton.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News on March 28 that they were investigating whether Clements' death was orchestrated by members of Ebel's white supremacist prison gang, 211 Crew. They were still trying to determine whether others were involved in Clements' death.

In 2005, Ebel slipped out of his handcuffs while being transferred from a cell and punched a prison guard in the nose, The Associated Press reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Early HIV drugs 'cure one in 10'

14 March 2013 Last updated at 18:50 ETBy James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

HIV, in green, bursting out of a white blood cell it has hijacked

Rapid treatment after HIV infection may be enough to "functionally cure" about a 10th of those diagnosed early, say researchers in France.

They have been analysing 14 people who stopped therapy, but have since shown no signs of the virus resurging.

It follows reports of a baby girl being effectively cured after very early treatment in the US.

However, most people infected with HIV do not find out until the virus has fully infiltrated the body.

The group of patients, known as the Visconti cohort, all started treatment within 10 weeks of being infected.

They stuck to a course of antiretroviral drugs for three years, on average, but then stopped.

The drugs keep the virus only in check, they cannot eradicate it from its hiding places inside the immune system.

Normally, when the drugs stop, the virus bounces back.

Control

This has not happened in the Visconti patients. Some have been able to control HIV levels for a decade.

Dr Asier Saez-Cirion, from the Institute Pasteur in Paris, said: "Most individuals who follow the same treatment will not control the infection, but there are a few of them who will."

He said 5-15% of patients may be functionally cured, meaning they no longer needed drugs, by attacking the virus soon after infection.

"They still have HIV, it is not eradication of HIV, it is a kind of remission of the infection."

Their latest study, in the journal PLoS Pathogens, analysed what happened to the immune system of the patients.

Early treatment may limit the number of unassailable HIV hideouts that are formed. However, the researchers said it was "unclear" why only some patients were functionally cured.

Dr Andrew Freedman, a reader in infectious diseases at Cardiff University School of Medicine, said the findings were "certainly interesting".

"The presumption is that they've started treatment very early and the virus hasn't spread to so many of the long-term reservoirs and that's why it works.

"Whether they'll control it forever, or whether it'll be for a number of years and subsequently they will progress and the virus will reappear, we don't know."

However, he cautioned that many patients would be diagnosed much later than in this study.

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