California Republican lawmakers gathered in front of the Capitol Centre building on K street in Sacramento to call for the California Board of Parole Hearings to deny Gregory Vogelsang parole.
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. He’s served 27 of his 355 year long sentence.
Lawmakers have called for reforms of the elderly parole program, which was first instituted in 2014 to address unconstitutionally overcrowded prisons in California. They’ve introduced a laundry list of bills to curb the program. Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover said that the reform effort should be bipartisan.
“I think this is an all hands on deck,” Hoover said. “All of the different bills that have been introduced do different things. I think we all need them to cross the finish line.”
Democratic Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen seeks to raise the eligibility age and add new restrictions for people convicted of sexual crimes. Hoover wants to introduce a ballot initiative that would grant the governor the power to deny inmates convicted of sexual crimes parole. Republican Senator Brian Jones introduced a bill that would make the votes of the parole board public.
“Unfortunately, when they vote on a release like this, that vote is not allowed to be seen by the public,” Hoover said. “The parole board needs to be accountable, just like legislators are accountable for every one of their votes.”
At a rally outside of the hearing, protesters gathered with lawmakers to call on the parole board to not release Vogelsang. Victims and loved ones of victims spoke out against letting out of prison.
Meghan Ratto was kidnapped at the age of six and held captive for 25 hours by a man named Tracy Arthur Stone.
“I was injected with methamphetamines, forced to drink alcohol, molested, raped and sodomized,” Ratto said. “He also abducted two other little girls before me and assaulted them.”
According to Ratto, she was promised he would serve at least half of his sentence and that she would never have to attend a parole hearing.
“Due to the elderly release program, I feel like I’ve been lied to,” Ratto said. “In June 2022, 30 years after the most horrific 25 hours of life, I received a letter letting me know that he’s eligible for parole due to the elderly release program.”
Paula Gardner speaks with Republican Assemblymember David Tangipa following a rally outside the Capitol Centre building on March 18, 2026.Ruth Finch/CapRadioPaula Gardner attended the rally. According to her, her niece was raped, beat and murdered. She said that he had been released on bail following him raping someone while they were unconscious.
“He’s in jail now, but we haven’t gone to trial,” Gardner said. “We have been allowing for these criminals to walk out outside of prison and jail after they’ve committed a serious, heinous crime.”
The parole board and addressing rehabilitation
During Vogelsang’s hearing, Board of Parole Hearings Executive Director Scott Wyckoff defended the parole board in light of comments made by lawmakers and concerned citizens. He said that the people who serve on the parole board use evidence- based tools and professional judgement to assess risk.
“In every single case, they apply the same legal standard taken from the law and court decisions interpreting it,” Wyckoff said. “These commissioners’ success as the state’s expert in risk assessment, is demonstrated by the low rate of recidivism for people released after parole hearing, the lowest in the nation.”
He said parole commissioners make extraordinarily difficult decisions based on the law and the evidence they have.
“If people want to change the law, the legislature is the place to do it,” Wyckoff said. “But attacking public servants for faithfully applying the law is wrong, and it undermines the integrity of our processes that keep California safe.”
According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the recidivism rate for inmates released through the elderly parole program is low, and for people convicted of sexual crimes, there’s no documented case of someone reoffending after being released through the program.
Evan Franzel is an attorney working as a San Francisco public defender in the Freedom Project, where he represents individuals going before the parole board. At the hearing, he said that he urges the parole board to remain committed to evaluate someone’s current risk factors.
“Public safety and fairness should guide this board’s decisions rather than political pressures,” Franzel said. “Elderly parole works. It protects public safety and it saves the state money, despite very public opposition to elderly parole.”
He said that the elderly parole program keeps Californians safe while helping ensure the state doesn’t waste scarce resources.
“I know for a fact that being elderly could not be further from a free pass in this process,” Franzel said. “The data show that even for people in their seventies and eighties, a parole grant is very unlikely.”
Keith Wattley, executive director of UnCommon Law, a nonprofit that supports inmates safely re-entering society, said that the process to actually being granted parole can be long and winding. It can take years, or even decades of disciplinary-free behavior and active engagement in rehabilitation programs in prison. These programs help inmates cope with and take accountability for the harm they’ve caused victims.
“The overwhelming majority of people who are first scheduled for parole hearings are denied parole. It often takes two, three, four, sometimes six, seven eight parole hearings, which are generally not every year,” Wattley said. “It takes people a whole series of hearings and to be working towards more involvement in those kinds of programs.”
He said that in order for someone to be granted parole, they have to show the board they’ve undergone a process of self introspection and an understanding of the factors that contributed to the crime.
“The best ones are those that are trauma-informed, that focus on the fact that most who have caused harm survived from harm in the past,” Wattley said.
According to a transcript released by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, Vogelsang said in his first hearing that he had been molested as a child, and had participated in programs like the ones Wattley referred to.
Pamela Conley is the mother of one of Vogelsang’s victims, and she spoke at the hearing against the release of Vogelsang.
“I really hope the parole board reevaluates hims and rejects his parole,” Conley said. “He is a child predator… the judge gave him 350 years for a reason.”
The parole board decided to refer the final decision to another hearing to re-examine evidence. That hearing will take place Nov. 4, 2026.
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