A 76-year-old woman was sent back to prison because her probation officials couldn’t contact her for a few hours,  the Washington Post reports. The woman had been in a computer class. 

Gwen Levi qualified as one of the 4,500 federal inmates who were released early from prison because of a nationwide effort to release some incarcerated individuals to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among prison populations. But now, Levi’s back in custody because of a miscommunication with her supervising officials. 

This is 76 yr old Gwen Levy who was returned to prison for not answering a call from her federal probation officer while in this computer class. They told her lawyer, “because she could have been robbing a bank, [we’re] going to treat her as if she was robbing a bank.” pic.twitter.com/sJvo9I5fVo

— Dyjuan Tatro (@DyjuanTatro) June 27, 2021

According to reports, Levi was attending a computer-processing class in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. During her time in class, it was discovered at 10:51 a.m. that she was not home by tracking done on her ankle monitor. After not responding to calls for a few hours, her monitor revealed that she was back at her mother’s home at 1:17 p.m. The Bureau of Prisons defined the incident on their report as an “escape.”

She’s now in a Washington, D.C. jail awaiting a transfer to a federal facility, her attorney Sapna Mirchandani told The Post.

“There’s no question she was in class,” Mirchandani said. “As I was told because she could have been robbing a bank, they’re going to treat her as if she was robbing a bank.”

Kristie A. Breshears, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, told The Post that the bureau staff has the authority to decide if a former prisoner should be sent back to “secure custody.” Additionally, when the pandemic is over, the Bureau of Prisons can decide to release prisoners to home confinement if they’re nearing the end of their sentences.

“I feel like I was attempting to do all the right things,” Levi said in a statement through her attorney. “Breaking rules is not who I am. I tried to explain what happened, and to tell the truth. At no time did I think I wasn’t supposed to go to that class. I apologize to my mother and my family for what this is doing to them.” 

Levi said she was “devastated.”

In 2004, she was charged with conspiracy to sell at least one kilogram of heroin, as part of a drug enterprise that operated in Maryland, D.C, California, New York, Texas and Wyoming per NBC News. She pled guilty on April 19, 2005, to the drug conspiracy and was sentenced on Oct. 6, 2006, to 35 years in prison. In different facilities in Maryland, Texas, and  Alabama, she served 16 years of a 24-year sentence.

After being released to home confinement, she moved back to Baltimore with her 94-year-old mother where she volunteered at prison advocacy organizations, with hopes of gaining employment.