Bed-Stuy Murder Convict Mistakenly Sprung From Jail Gets 25 Yrs:Report

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — A man who was mistakenly released from jail after being arrested and charged with a 2018 shooting has been sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to reports.

Christopher Buggs, 28, was found guilty earlier this year of killing Ernest Bownlee, 55, as the victim was about to eat a pepper steak outside of a Bed-Stuy deli on Vernon Avenue in 2018, according to the Daily News.

Buggs was accidentally released from Rikers Island in 2021 due to a clerical error by jail workers, triggering a monthlong manhunt, according to the Daily News.

The error began when Buggs was ordered to be held in contempt after he told a judge during a bail hearing that he should perform oral sex on him after Buggs was denied bail, reports the Daily News.

Apparently the contempt order triggered a massive Department of Corrections failure which led to his accidental release, the Daily News said, despite the lengthy series of checks and approvals needed to release an inmate.

But Justice Vincent Del Guidice, who ruled over Buggs's case, said in court on Thursday that he held "no malice" towards Buggs' release, the Daily News reported. “I certainly don’t hold it against him that the Department of Correction let him out," the judge said, "that’s not his fault.”

Buggs' lawyer said that his client didn't flee and was terrorized by DOC staff in retribution for their own mistake, according to the Daily News.

“I don’t think that 25 years or a life sentence is going to make me … it will make me a better person, but I don’t think I need that to become a better person,” Buggs said, the Daily News reported.