Jail Procedures Probed in Wake of Mistaken Release : Sheriff: Sherman Block says a clerk apparently confused a woman accused of murder with another female inmate.

Sheriff’s officials said Wednesday they are considering changes in jail procedures after a Glendale woman facing a possible death penalty on murder charges was mistakenly released because a clerk inadvertently put the wrong document in her file.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said the clerk apparently confused Anait Zakarian--who has vanished since she was freed Friday--with another female inmate whose last name also began with Z.

A task force of officers has been assigned to tracking down Zakarian, now a fugitive.

“It was a case of human error,” Block said, explaining that two files were inadvertently mixed up by an as-yet unidentified file clerk.

“Every clerk in this section had at least 20 years’ experience, and they are still trying to find out who was responsible for slipping the wrong paper, ordering a release on finish of sentence, into the wrong folder. But there was nothing sinister,” the sheriff said.

Block emphatically rejected speculation that Zakarian may have tapped into a police computer and programmed her own release.

“That is nonsense, absolute nonsense,” Block said. “It is true that inmates operate a computer answering service, identifying where specific inmates are incarcerated, but they have no access to the computer that governs releases.”

Block said his department may add an additional check to the system to make it more difficult for prisoners who are not scheduled to be released to walk free

Zakarian, 22, and her brother Garen were told this month that they might receive the death penalty if found guilty of killing Benita Mikailian last October. Mikailian, a rival Glendale travel agency operator, was killed allegedly in a business dispute at her office.

Both women were in the business of booking flights to Armenia for many Armenian and Armenian American families in Los Angeles.

Relatives said Zakarian believed that when the guards released her from the Sybil Brand Institute for Women, it was because she was free to leave.

“They thought, and she thought, the charges were dropped,” Block said. “She went to Las Vegas for the weekend, and then boarded a flight for the East Coast. We do not know where she is now.”

The incident was an anomaly according to Block.

Nothing like this “has ever happened before in a homicide case,” Block said. “But when you consider that 900 inmates are charged with murder in the jail system at any given time, and 250,000 people pass through the system every year, unusual things can occur. But this was human error, and the public does not need to be concerned that this is going to happen regularly.”