Prosecutors on Feb. 12 elected against pursuing eight other charges from an unrelated case. When that information reached officials at the Richmond City Jail on Feb. 19, employees — relying on information about his bond status in court files — believed they no longer had legal authority to continue holding Kelsey pending his April 28 sentencing, so they released him.

Police and prosecutors did not become aware until Tuesday that Kelsey was no longer in jail.

Two law-enforcement sources confirmed that they learned Kelsey was out after he called Richmond police to ask about them possibly returning a cellphone that had been confiscated from him as evidence in one of the cases.

A judge issued an order later Tuesday morning for the arrest of Kelsey, whose record of violent-crime convictions in the city dates to 2008 and who has been charged with nearly two dozen crimes over that span, according to Richmond Circuit Court records.

Various law-enforcement officials said the information that prompted the Richmond Sheriff’s Office to release Kelsey from the jail was something that could have been addressed by numerous people throughout the judicial process, including the lawyers involved in the case, judges, court clerks and employees of the sheriff’s office.