That, if you were counting, was four ons — one, as it turns out, for each of the arrests that the ostensibly excised warrant led to over the next several years. The first occurred a few months after Mr. Bowen’s February court date when, according to a police report, he was riding his red Schwinn bicycle to a psychiatrist’s appointment and pulled up onto the sidewalk near Linden Boulevard and Euclid Avenue in Brooklyn. He was stopped by the police, who asked for his identification. And when the officers ran it through the system, they found the warrant.

Mr. Bowen spent several days on Rikers Island before having a hearing about the warrant, and when he finally saw a judge, court papers say, he was summarily released.

Months passed. Then, on Nov. 13, 2010, Mr. Bowen was stopped by the police a second time. On this occasion, records show, he received a summons for public drinking. Once again, an officer asked for his ID. Once again, Mr. Bowen produced it. Once again, he was arrested on suspicion of evading the open warrant. And once again, when he finally appeared in court, a judge determined that the warrant should never have been issued and had, at any rate, already been closed. The judge even gave Mr. Bowen an official document that said the warrant had been dismissed. According to court records, the judge advised Mr. Bowen to show the piece of paper to the police if they tried to arrest him again over the warrant.

Which is exactly what he did on Sept. 2, 2012, when he was stopped by the police for a third time — for being at a playground after dark. The earlier situations were repeated: Mr. Bowen was asked for his ID and the warrant was found in the system. But even when he produced the judge’s letter, the police ignored it, court papers say. Mr. Bowen was arrested and taken into custody overnight.

“It was always the same,” he said. “They’d ask for my ID. I’d show them my ID. Then off I’d go.”

The final episode took place in July 2013 when Mr. Bowen and a girlfriend were riding home from Coney Island on the subway. It was a sweltering afternoon, the air-conditioning in their car was out and Mr. Bowen, still recovering from recent hernia surgery, was suffering from the heat. So he, his girlfriend and several other passengers, he said, walked between two cars while the train was in motion. The police were in the second car, he said, and saw them. According to a police report, Mr. Bowen was stopped, asked for his ID and taken into custody over the warrant. But as he was being booked, he told the police that because of his surgery, he needed medication.