A warrant gone wrong leaves an innocent man jailed for eight days.

In the span of a life, eight days is not long. An eight-day vacation from work: bliss. An eight-day bout with the flu: misery. Eight days of anything can become a matter of perspective.

But what if eight days of your life entailed being arrested, driven to another county, then yet another county, and being held in jail in protective custody on multiple charges of child molestation, knowing that not only had you not molested any child, but that police had arrested the completely wrong guy?

Such is the case of Victor Jesus Gasca, who was arrested last April by San Jose Police on a warrant alleging multiple counts of child molestation.

The warrant, issued by the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, is based on an investigation by the King City Police Department, where the molestations are alleged to have occurred between 2009 and 2016. Monterey County Superior Court Judge Pamela Butler signed the warrant and it seems to have the right information: His driver’s license number; his date of birth; and his address, in San Jose’s Alum Rock area.

The only problem was, the Victor Gasca they arrested was the wrong Victor Gasca. The Victor Gasca they meant to arrest was born in 1989, has a different driver’s license number and didn’t live in San Jose. It’s not actually clear where he lives; based on court records, it doesn’t look like police have yet found the right guy and arrested him.

Gasca’s story is laid out in a claim filed by attorney John Coniglio on Sept. 28 against the DA’s and Sheriff’s offices. In the claim, Coniglio writes that his client “was adamant that they had the wrong person.

“A simple review of the King City Police report made it clear that Victor Jesus Gasca was not the suspect in question,” Coniglio writes. “Despite repeated requests by Mr. Gasca to check the records to verify they had the wrong person, Victor Jesus Gasca was in custody eight days before it was determined that the Sheriff’s Department was acting on a warrant issued for the wrong person.”

In the police report, portions of which were included with the claim, King City Police Officer Elias Orozco writes that when Victor Gasca’s information came up in his search of law enforcement databases, he requested the man’s photograph and discovered almost immediately that he was the wrong guy. The case should remain open and under investigation, he wrote.

But between Orozco writing that report and Butler signing the warrant, something went terribly wrong.

When he was arrested, according to the claim, Gasca was first transported to the Santa Clara County Jail, and then for reasons best described as who the hell knows why, transported to Sacramento. There, he remained in a van “for his own safety,” Coniglio writes, until Monterey County sheriff’s deputies fetched him. He was placed in protective custody, with bail set at $2.7 million.

“Despite (the correct) information being in the police report, the Office of the District Attorney for Monterey County issued a warrant… in complete and total disregard of Mr. Gasca’s constitutional rights, either intentionally or with deliberate indifference to the truth.”

How did it happen? Who the hell knows. Incoming District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni says because the matter is now the subject of pending litigation, she couldn’t comment.

Gasca won his freedom when Deputy Public Defender Mike Belter listened, checked the police report against the warrant and presented the information to the District Attorney’s Office. On April 17, Judge Timothy Roberts ordered Gasca released.

Gasca, Coniglio says, is a regular working guy, seemingly with no connection to Monterey County. He’s “shell-shocked” by what happened.

Gasca went back to court to request Judge Butler find him factually innocent and order the police records involving him to be sealed and destroyed. She did so on Oct. 10, writing in the order that Victor Jesus Gasca “has absolutely nothing to do with this case.”

The county rejected the claim and Coniglio is plotting his next moves. If he sues, I think he will win. It seems like a no-brainer of a case.

MARY DUAN writes Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan.