Teenager psyched out over a missing phone

The lawyer of a young man sentenced for selling an iPhone he found says his client has been stuck in "hell" for almost two weeks. By that he means, Param Sharma ended up in a psych ward instead of a regular jail cell. The 18-year-old was convicted on the 18th of a charge related to selling an iPhone he found on Craigslist. His lawyer Andrew Shalaby says the charge was a misdemeanor and rarely used: failure to make a reasonable effort to find the owner of the phone. The judge sentenced Sharma to 90 days at the Santa Rita Jail. That's when things went south for Sharma. He somehow ended up in the psych ward. "He's in block F, according to the Sergeant here, the worst of the worst in the section of a psych ward," Shalaby said, adding "somebody tried to kill him and I was really, really upset." Of course he should be punished for not attempting to locate the iPhone's owner - losing it in the first place had already caused its owner enough inconvenience. But sending him to a psych ward where another patient has already made an attempt on his life is disproportionate. There is, however, a silver lining - late last night, without any word why, jailers told Shalaby that Sharma would be moved to a regular cell. Then the court's administrative staff said they had suddenly found a missing file relating to the case, which the DA's office had the whole time.