Killer Sent Back To Prison After Being Paroled Due To Math Error

AURORA — An Aurora man convicted of a 1994 murder spent three weeks on parole before he was taken back to prison when a judge ruled he was only released due to an error in his sentencing.

Bonzell Joyner, 45, was taken into custody after a hearing Wednesday to address his July 22 release from prison, according to a report by the Aurora Beacon-News. Joyner was sentenced in 1998 to spend his life in prison before an appellate court reduced his sentence to 60 years.

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Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon said last week that Joyner should be in prison until at least 2024, while Joyner’s profile on the Illinois Department of Corrections website showed last week that his projected discharge date is July 22, 2023.

McMahon attributed Joyner’s release last month to an error in calculating his sentence. Joyner received credit for serving 3,002 days — or more than eight years — in jail between his 1994 arrest and his 1998 sentencing.

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Kane County prosecutors on Wednesday urged Tegeler to correct the error that gave Joyner credit for time served “before the offense even occurred,” while a public defender representing Joyner said her client “served the sentence he was given” and should be allowed to remain on parole, the Beacon-News reports.

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Kane County Circuit Court Judge D.J. Tegeler ordered Joyner back to prison after ruling he was given almost twice the amount of credit for time served as he should have received, the Aurora Beacon-News reports. Tegeler ruled Joyner should have received credit for 1,502 days, instead of 3,002 days, the report states.

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Joyner was one of nine men who were convicted in connection with the 1994 killing of Armando Mendez. Two other men were also convicted of murder, two pleaded guilty to attempted murder, two pleaded guilty to aggravated battery, two pleaded guilty to lesser charges and one man was acquitted by a jury. Joyner is the only man still in prison for those convictions.

Mendez was killed in October 1994 after being attacked by a group of men outside a Harper's gas station in the 1100 block of East New York Street in Aurora, according to court records. He was 19.

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A witness testified at Joyner's trial that Mendez was beaten by several men outside the gas station before a man walked up and shot Mendez once in the back of his head, court records show. Joyner was charged with and convicted of first-degree murder after police identified him as the shooter, the documents state.

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