Cuffed man left in Kane Co. holding cell 18 hours

A 32-year-old Carpentersville man expected to be locked up for a few nights in the Kane County jail after a late December court hearing.

The problem is, no one remembered to take him from the courthouse holding area to the jail.

Husan Smith spent 18 hours handcuffed inside that locked room with nothing but an aluminum table and a small glass window looking out into the hallway.

There was no bathroom, no water and no food in the room described by authorities as smaller than a jail cell.

“At about three hours I started to get really nervous,” Smith said. “I started to yell and kick the door to try and make enough noise that someone could come and find me.”

His panic turned to distress five hours after being placed in the room at 2:40 p.m.

“I just laid down on the aluminum table and tried to do some breathing exercises,” he said. “I would pace the room for an hour at a time.”

And then nature called about 6 hours into his stay.

“I really had to go to the bathroom bad,” he said. “At first I couldn't get my pants down because I was handcuffed, so the first time I peed on myself.”

Smith said he tried every trick in the book to get out of the cell.

He found a way to slip the cuffs to the front of his body and scoured the window pane for loose bolts.

He attempted to pick the lock.

He even dismantled the smoke detector and tried to cross wires to set the alarm off.

“It was a long shot, but that was all I had left,” he said.

Smith entered the conference room on Dec. 29 after a court hearing for violating his probation on a drug offense and was prepared to serve four days at the Kane County jail.

Kane County Sheriff Pat Perez has ordered an investigation into the incident, which happened at the Kane County Judicial Center in St. Charles.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” said Lt. Pat Gengler of the Kane County Sheriff's Office. “Everyone wants to know what happened.”

At around 8:30 the next morning, Smith heard an officer in an adjacent holding cell and began banging on the door to get his attention.

When the officer realized what had happened, “He was irate,” Smith said.

Judge Timothy Sheldon, the same judge who sentenced him on the 29th, apologized to Smith at a court hearing Wednesday.

Smith's four-day sentence stems from a failed drug test during his 30-month probation period for a felony possession of a controlled substance charge.

Smith did not need medical attention, and was released from jail on Jan. 1.

“They were only supposed to hold me there for about 30 minutes,” Smith said. “They dropped the ball.”