When the Clay County Sheriff's Office transferred a grand theft case from one section of the department to another, key details of the suspect they were seeking were replaced with information for a Louisiana mother of two who they then wrongly arrested twice on two separate charges, according to investigative notes from the Public Defender's Office.

Ashley Nicole Chiasson spent a total of five weeks in the Clay County jail after she was arrested on a charge of grand theft in January and again four months later on a charge of writing bad checks.

She was the wrong Ashley Chiasson both times.

Sometime between when deputies wrote the grand theft report naming Ashley Chiasson as a suspect and when they issued a warrant for her arrest, the woman's height, weight and birth date changed, according to notes from investigator Buddy Tyrrell of the Public Defender's Office in the 4th Judicial Circuit.

Deputies arrested Ashley Nicole Chiasson, 28, but they were looking for Ashley Odessa Chiasson, 31. There were about five inches and 20 pounds difference in the description of the two women.

Key witnesses and victims were not shown photo lineups to identify the suspect in both cases, according to Tyrrell and his notes.

This is the second time in six months the Clay Sheriff's Office arrested the wrong person for a crime.

In August, detectives arrested teenager Cody Lee Williams in reference to a sex crime he didn't commit. He was jailed for 35 days, and a department internal report later pointed to the lack of photo identification as a key mistake made in the case.

Williams and Chiasson have each filed letters of intent to sue the department.

Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler issued a statement Tuesday apologizing to Chiasson and saying short cuts were taken by his officers in both wrongful arrests. Beseler's spokeswoman said he would not be commenting further while his office investigates the matter. He previously apologized to Williams for his wrongful arrest.

Deputies are still seeking to arrest Ashley O. Chiasson.

On Wednesday, Beseler's office released documents indicating Ashley N. Chiasson did have a valid warrant for her arrest in Pinellas County for violating probation on grand theft that was reduced to petit theft.

When Chiasson was released by Clay officials in March after her first arrest, she was immediately transferred to Pinellas, where after 21 days she was sentenced to time served and her probation was terminated, said Chiasson's lawyer, Andrew Bonderud. He said Chiasson had outstanding warrants for misdemeanors in Louisiana that she answered for prior to being extradited to Clay County and wrongfully jailed.

Thought to be rare

The Times-Union on Tuesday reported that when Beseler spoke in February about the wrongful arrest of Williams, he stressed how rare such a mistake was for his agency. General Counsel Jim Pimentel said in February the agency had only one other allegation of wrongful arrest in 10 years, a 2009 case.

Chiasson was released from Clay County jail after the first wrongful arrest less than a week before the Times-Union interviewed Beseler for the story about Williams and received that information from Pimentel.

Mary Justino, Beseler's spokeswoman, said Wednesday Beseler and Pimentel were first notified on Friday by staff about Chiasson's false arrest and then on Tuesday they received the letter of intent to sue by mail from Bonderud.

"Neither the Sheriff nor Pimentel knew about the Chiasson arrest mistake when they spoke to you months ago about the Cody Williams case," Justino said in an email. "Your article implies that they knew about Chiasson's false arrest back then and didn't tell you, but they did not."

The original grand theft report was written in August and contained identification information about Ashley Odessa Chiasson, who had also spent time in Louisiana, according to Tyrrell's notes.

Some changes made

After the original theft report was written, it was set to be transferred to the sheriff office's "general investigations" section, according to Tyrrell's notes.

"At some point between the original report by Deputy (G.B.) Ward and the investigation by Detective (M.J.) Mertz, the date of birth, physical description and Louisiana ID card for Ashley O. was deleted and the date of birth, physical description and Florida ID # for Ashley N. was added to the investigation," the notes state.

That incorrect information was submitted for an arrest warrant in October, and in January Ashley N. Chiasson was booked into Clay County's jail.

Ashley N. Chiasson told Tyrrell that she knew of another woman with the same name and had once seen a story about her on a media site. The investigator contacted the St. Bernard Police Department in Louisiana, where officials there were familiar with an Ashley O. Vegas, according to Tyrrell's notes.

Through discussion with St. Bernard police, Tyrrell confirmed that the Ashley O. Chiasson on the original grand theft report out of Clay County was the same person being sought by Louisiana investigators. That woman also went by the name Ashley O. Vegas, who had an outstanding warrant in St. Bernard and several other warrants in Lafourche Parish on charges of theft, forgery and counterfeiting, according to Tyrrell's notes.

Tyrrell then took the photo from a Nola.com story about Ashley O. Vegas being sought on charges of defrauding businesses and counterfeiting and showed it to a witness in Clay County's grand theft case.

'100 percent' sure

"He looked at it and said, 'Yep, that's her,100 percent,' " Tyrrell said.

The witness said he had never been shown a photo by the Clay County Sheriff's Office, according to Tyrrell's notes.

That's when authorities began to realize they had the wrong Ashley Chiasson, Tyrrell said.

Clay County Sheriff's Office arrested Ashley N. Chiasson for a second time on a charge of writing bad checks at a bank in May. After her arrest Tyrrell said he went to the bank and talked to the bank manager. The manager had written the woman's name down as Ashley O. Chiasson.

"Nobody had talked to her," Tyrrell said. But the bank did have video and photo of the incident.

Tyrrell said in his notes that a Clay detective told him he had looked at the video and photo from the bank and compared to that a photo of Ashley N. Chiasson before arresting her.

Tyrrell wouldn't comment on his impressions of Clay County Sheriff's Office's police work.

Beseler has said those involved will be held accountable and that his office will look into new policies and procedures.