Sacramento County’s top local law enforcement officials spoke out on Thursday against the release of convicted sex offender Gregory Lee Vogelsang through California’s Elderly Parole program.
Vogelsang, age 57,was convicted of almost 30 counts of kidnapping and sex crimes against multiple children between the ages of 5 and 11 in the 1990s, according to Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho. He’s served 27 of his 355 year long sentence.
Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper and Ho spoke at a press conference. Cooper said he believes pedophiles are beyond reform.
“They shouldn’t breathe our air. They need to be locked away forever for the things they did,” Cooper said. “Some things you don’t recover from … You don’t rehabilitate sexual predators. Ever.”
This release comes on the heels of David Funston’s release that was set to take place in February. Funston was turned over to Placer County officials who are bringing new charges against him in early March. He never was released fully from custody, but according to Ho, there’s not yet a case that he’s aware of to bring against Vogelsang.
“When we discovered that [Funston] was getting paroled, we reached out to Placer County, told him about their case where the statute of limitations had not run and worked with them,” Ho said. “And we’ll go through this case as well, looking for anything else.”
The parole approval was sent back to the board for review by Governor Gavin Newsom, and Vogelsang has not yet been released. Ho said he thinks if released, Vogelsang will reoffend.
“This inmate will molest again. And yet, this parole board is letting him out,” Ho said. “And they’re letting him out under one of the most horrible, unjust laws that we have in the state of California. Elder parole.”
Keith Wattley, executive director for UnCommon Law, is an advocate for the elder parole program. He said the program has, by and large, been a successful one, especially for people convicted of sexual offenses.
“Out of all the people convicted of sex offenses who were later released on elderly parole, not a single one has committed a new sex offense,” Wattley said. “Not one. The evidence really can’t be stronger that this program does not endanger the public.”
However, Cooper said there’s a reason for that..
“They haven’t been caught.” Cooper said. “He [Vogelsang] admitted that he still fantasizes about kids. … And if you read his statement in the hearing, he admits a lot of troubling things.”
The Sheriff’s Office released the transcript of the hearing. In it, Vogelsang talks about how his attraction to children is something he can’t fully rid himself of, but something that he’s learned to recognize the triggers of.
“I got to know what the internal triggers and external triggers and what the risky situations and the warning signs are for pedophilia,” Vogelsang said, according to the transcript. “And like I said before, when I don’t view a child as a sex object, I don’t want to become aroused, but I know it’s always going to be there.”
Vogelsang also talked about the abuse he faced as a child.
“I think when I was a child, I had normalized child molestation due to my father abusing me from seven to 11,” Vogelsang said. “It wasn’t until I had dealt with my own childhood abuse of the pain, the harm, the guilt and the shame that I felt as a child, that today I can sit there and say that I honestly understand the psychological and the emotional damage that I was doing.”
Lilli Paratore, director of Legal Services of UnCommon Law said in an email that their statistics come directly from the Board of Parole Hearings.
“When law enforcement officials say these people ‘haven’t been caught yet,’ they’re asking the public to ignore actual data in favor of speculation,” Paratore said. “What data are they pointing to? The state’s own data tells a clear story, and the evidence speaks for itself.”
District Attorney Ho said that after prosecuting sex crimes for many years, he believed statistics can be misleading.
“What we found out was child molestation cases in particular, even adult cases, the vast majority of them are never reported,” Ho said. “Or if they’re reported, it’s many, many years later.”
Wattley from UnCommon Law said that at a certain point, inmates “age out” of crime, where their health and age prevents them physically from reoffending.
“We should allow the parole board to consider whether their advanced age and the changes they’ve experienced over time have sufficiently reduced their risk to the public that they can safely be released,” Wattley said of offenders considered for parole.
In the hearing transcript, the parole board confirmed that Vogelsang had his walker and mobility vest during the hearing, to comply with ADA requirements. Ho said that he didn’t believe that sexual offenders can age out of their desires.
“I prosecuted the East Area rapist, the Golden State killer, and we caught him when he was 72 years old,” Ho said. “I have video of him in his jail cell looking at a female worker, and he is masturbating to her.”
The Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo, was sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Wattley from UnCommon Law said the process of being granted parole is a lengthy one, and one that he believes is underutilized.
“We have a number of procedures that give them very broad discretion, that allow them, really encourage them to deny parole on the smallest amount of indication the person might be less stable or might potentially re-offend,” Wattley said.
Ho said that when he’s had to inform victims that their abusers are being released again, it’s some of the most difficult conversations he’s had as an attorney.
“To sit down and talk to a survivor when they believe that justice was there, that they had closure … or the person that molested them would get out,” Ho said. “It’s a heartbreaking conversation that we should never have.”
However, Wattley said survivors are unlikely to find peace through the legal system.
“It’s not designed to provide the healing that survivors actually need,” Wattley said. “The more you’re trying to force this purely punitive system and process to produce a restorative, healing focused outcome, the more frustrated one is going to be.”
The district attorney and sheriff are calling for Sacramento county residents to show up and have their voices heard at another parole board hearing being held Wednesday, March 18 at 1515 K Street, Suite 550, Sacramento, CA.