Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Wrong Man Held 1 Day as Carjack Suspect

An electrician arrested on suspicion of carjacking last week was a victim of mistaken identity, authorities said.

Earnest Samudio, 28, of Canyon Country was at the wrong place at the wrong time April 14 when two men stole a car from a strip mall at Soledad Canyon Road and Sierra Highway, said Sgt. Howard Fairchild of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“He was in the vicinity of where the crime occurred and he looks like the suspect,” Fairchild said. “And the (stolen) car was recovered just a couple of hundred yards from his home.”

Samudio, who was accompanied by a nephew who also was arrested, was identified by the victim in the auto theft, Fairchild said. He was arrested at his Crossglade Avenue home about 6:30 p.m., Fairchild said.

They were cleared the next day after a customer at a tax consultant’s office remembered holding a conversation with Samudio’s nephew and a woman at the strip mall remembered seeing Samudio in his car before the carjacking.

Fairchild said Samudio could easily have been charged with the crime, because no one at the tax consultant’s office remembered him.

“It was the busiest tax day of the year,” said Fairchild of the April 14 incident. “They didn’t remember anybody.

“It could of been one of the cases where an innocent guy could have gone to jail for a real long time,” he said.

Samudio was released the following day, and Fairchild said the Sheriff’s Department will refund the $135 Samudio paid to have his car released from an impound yard.