Sacramento officials oppose early release of convicted child predator under elder parole program | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

We have District Attorney Ho. We have Sheriff Cooper here as well as Undersheriff Ziegler and Assistant Sheriff Robles. And we’re gonna sort out the dessert. Good morning and thank you for coming. Well, the parole board is at it again. This is what they are doing. Inmate Gregory Vogelsing in the mid 1990s molested six different young boys between the ages of 5 and 11. *** jury convicted him of 27 different charges, and *** judge sentenced him to life. In fact, the judge sentenced him to 355 years to life. And the parole board is at it again because the parole board recently agreed to parole him, to let him out of prison. When he is only 56 years old after serving only 27 years of *** 355 to life sentence after he molested, after he kidnapped, after he forcefully sexually assaulted six young boys between the ages of 5 and 11, and let me give you some insight into what this inmate said at the parole hearing. During his parole hearing, the inmate specifically said. You have to stop *** to images of child in your mind or real child pornography. Because that leads to molestation and molestation leads to kidnapping, and the kidnapping leads ultimately to the murder of *** child. This inmate had *** risk assessment that was above average for reoffending, and yet the parole board is letting him out. This inmate. Admitted while in custody to *** to images in his mind of naked children and yet the parole board is letting him out this inmate. Will molest again, and yet this parole board is letting him out and they’re letting him out. Under one of the most horrible unjust laws that we have in the state of California, elder parole, this law affords people such as child molesters like Vogelsing out of custody after molesting little children, after posing *** threat. So what do we need to do? We’re here today for *** call to action. Because he was granted parole and my office fought it every single step of the way, we have now requested. That that decision be reviewed en banc by the entire parole board and that hearing, that en banc hearing is going to be next Wednesday on March 18th and so we are asking people right now to attend that hearing. It’s gonna be at 1515 K Street, Suite 550. And we’re asking people to show up, we’re asking people to show up to make *** comment. We’re also asking people to call in to 916-267-0857 and follow the prompts to leave *** message, and people can also send as well an email and submit *** statement opposing the release of this child molester, the sexual predator who will molest again, and what we frankly need to do right now. It’s changed the law. Elder parole was first passed in 2017 and then passed again and modified in 2020, and we need to change the law because we cannot let these sexual predators out again. This is but another example and to be honest with you, I have *** list of five other child molesters who are going to be up for parole. And if this law stands and if we don’t stop this inmate, this sexual predator from being released, those other. Predators will be released as well, so it’s time to stand up for our children because at the end of the day *** society is judged by what it chooses to protect and if we are unwilling to protect our children, if the legislature is unwilling to do that, if the parole board is unwilling to protect our children, then we must protect our children against these predators and with that I’d like to turn it over. To Sheriff Jim Cooper, who’s been an advocate for public safety, an advocate to prevent the release of these sexual predators onto our streets, thank you. Here we go again. We’re here two weeks ago talking about the same issue and, and please don’t sugarcoat anything for your readers, your viewers, your listeners. This is real. It’s visceral. I, I’m angry about this. It is, it is not OK. Between 1995 and 1997, Vogelsong molested at least six boys between the ages of 5 and 11 in Sacramento County. The reason this case was cracked was the eight year old boy was picked up near Sunrise Mall at sunrise in Greenback. He asked him, you wanna play video games? The kid says, yeah. Takes him to his house, molests the kid. Returns him home later on. The kid was so resilient when detectives interviewed him. He described where he was taken to in Roseville and through good detective work, they located the suspect’s house, did *** search warrant, ended up arresting Mr. Vogelsong. In *** psychological in his psychological exam with the Department of Corrections, he admitted to inviting boys over to his house for sleepovers, buying them things, taking them places to gain the parents’ trust before abusing them. One victim was very young. And spent the weekends at his home, Mr. Vogelson’s homes for many, many years. During those visits, the child was molested. Investigators found Boyd’s underwear in Vogelsson’s possession. He admitted he kept them for sexual stimulation. Also, according to psychological risk assessment, he admitted he kept the underwear to smell them for sexual gratification. He is *** predator, and *** lot of folks don’t realize that. And the reason we talk about these things graphically, we want your viewers, listeners and readers to realize this. There are people out here like that. That’s the bottom line. You don’t rehabilitate sex offenders and the parole board, I mean, you look around at, at, at every person, the average person. Mr. Vogelsong belongs in prison for the rest of his life, and yet the board releases him after 27 years. Think about that. 27 years. He was sentenced to over 300 years. How’s he getting out early? How do you reconcile that? There’s no reconciliation and that’s the big issue in California. The parole board is letting us down. They’re horrible. I will say that out front. They’re horrible. After this case and the Funston case, they need to be gone, period. Children deserve all the protection they get. Children deserve *** second chance. When it comes down to predators or our kids, there’s no in between. There’s no gray or middle area on that. You support our kids, you defend our kids. This has to stop. People need to get angry. And as far as the legislature goes, there’s *** lot of bills in play right now to address this issue and fix it. They want to move back to 60 years of age. I’m gonna call BS on that. The only change is if you’re *** sexually violent predator, you’re not eligible for elderly parole, period. There’s no fixes, no in-betweens. It has to happen that way. Legislature, read the tea leaves. The public’s fed up. They’re tired of this BS. Soft on crime does not work. Think about Funkston, 7 victims. Excuse me, 8 victims, 7 boys and 1 girl. Mr. Vogelsong, 6 victims, all boys. That’s their appetite, their flavor, they desire young kids. There are *** lot of folks out there like that. We see it day in and day out. The DA’s office, the sheriff’s office, and law enforcement fighting it day in and day out. There are *** lot of people out there like that. You will never rehabilitate them and to give them *** second chance, what does that tell you to the victims? These children, kids are scarred the rest of their life and suffer trauma. I have *** 315 year old grandson. And, and I think about that. What if someone did this to him? That is not OK. I, I am so angry and so fed up with the laws in California protecting people. You have caucuses that purport to protect people. There’s *** new caucus now, *** Children’s caucus. Where are you at on this? Are you weighing in on this? I hear crickets. I hear *** women’s caucus, women and children’s issues. Where are you at? Weigh in on this. Little kids, you combine both of these guys. That’s 13 victims. And I’m, you know what, there are more cause it’s underreported. There are many more victims. So, put your money where your mouth is. Why you got elected, go protect our children. We are fed up with it. California’s fed up with it. Sacramento’s fed up with it. These two cases are in Sacramento County. Imagine how many more there are in the state of California. Imagine how many folks have been released. They’ve been releasing 100 lifers *** month. Individuals similar to this. They’re out on our streets right now, and it’s *** gamble. As the DA said, you’ve got *** moderate risk of reoffending, *** high risk. Why are you even giving him *** chance? And I, I said it again, again, what in the hell is going on in California? Ask yourselves that. And the way this happens, I, I, I, he gave you the information, Tim did, is your viewers, your listeners and your readers, get pissed and demand accountability because we’re watching how you vote. It’s an election year. Protect your constituents. Protect our children. Stop protecting these predators, these pedophiles. I would also note this. The inception of this predator. He described how it started. He was *** mover. He helped move people from one home to the next, and when he was in people’s homes, he would search through their photo albums looking for pictures of their children, especially if there were pictures where they were unclothed. He would steal those photographs, take them home, and *** to them, but he admitted that that wasn’t enough, that he then moved on. To molest children, and that is who. The parole board is letting out. And that is the problem with elder parole that is letting out child molesters and as the sheriff said, we need to change the law, we need to exclude child molesters, exclude sexual predators. For elder parole, we need to change the law because frankly those who passed these laws have let us down and worse they’ve let our children down and so we need to put an end to that so with that um I got I got one more thing and and and this is this is this is real talk in county jails and state prisons inmates. Themselves hate child molesters. They don’t associate with them. They don’t deal with them. They have *** code of conduct. How in the hell doesn’t the parole board have *** code of conduct? That’s *** great question. They hate those folks themselves, the inmates do, and will not tolerate them. Yet our parole board tolerates this stuff. Something’s wrong and it needs to get fixed. We’d open up for any questions that you may have. Mr. Hope, can you talk about how your office is potentially going to do what perhaps the Placer County DA’s office did as it relates to David Allen Funston? Will you be going back and trying to decipher whether there are additional charges? That people like Vogelsang could face, um, do you have to kind of comb back through previous cases to see if there’s *** loophole for your office to then charge him on an additional case that you might not have known about. So in the Funston case we had vehemently opposed parole throughout every step of that case and when Uh, we discovered that he was getting paroled. Uh, we reached out to Placer County, um, told them about their case where the statute of limitation had not run, and worked with them, and they eventually filed charges on that, and we’ll go through this case as well looking for anything else, but here’s the problem that I fundamentally have here. We as *** society and as *** justice system made *** promise to these victims, these 6 young boys, that they would never have to go to *** parole hearing, that this monster would never get out. And as *** society we’ve broken that promise with this law. That is *** heartbreaking and disgusting thing that we have done to these boys, re-victimizing them in terms of now they’re monster. May get out because of that. But we’ll, we’ll over, we’ll look through every single thing that we have to look through to try to keep them in. But right now, there is one opportunity to keep them in, and that opportunity is next Wednesday at the inbound hearing. So we’re asking people to call in to show up and to stand up for children. Um, just wondering, so are you guys, it sounds like you guys are calling for people to come out to the en bound hearing also to exclude sexual predators from elderly parole, also to get rid of the parole board. I’m just, I’m just curious about those specific tasks. So, so as far as the law goes, I spent 8 years in the legislature, so I know it very well. Um, there’s not an appetite for it. Um, not everyone, but some folks want no one being held accountable, going to jail or jail or prison with that. And because of the Funston case, *** lot of bills started popping up. There’s *** lot of bills out there right now, probably 7 bills that address this issue, but they’re moving it back to 60 years of age, so it’s very vague. They’re trying to carve it out so it’s possible to get support and get it passed. Well, you know what. It’s not *** heavy lift. Um, I don’t know who’s gonna oppose this besides the anti-recidivism people and some of the, uh, proponents of basically letting you do what you want, but the public supports it 100%. This, this is *** no-brainer. So read the tea leaves. People want it changed. They want our children protected. And like I said, this is the tip of the iceberg. I, I promise you that. And we all know sexual assault is underreported. We know that for *** fact. There are more kids out there that were never identified. So, and this is just Sacramento, 2 cases in 2 weeks. There are more thousands of cases out there, hundreds of bad guys, evil people out there. There are evil people in this world. There are. There are no level offenders in jail or prison. So wake up Sacramento, wake up California, get angry and let your politicians know enough is enough. Things have to change. What have your conversations been like with um victims, your victims’ advocates having to reach out to those crime victims and let them know? I, I imagine there’s the, the notification of the victims that he’s um on, on the docket to be released. So, uh, what have the conversations been like with the families of the people who thought that he was going to serve 300+ years? I’m gonna let him talk about some of it, DA, but, but it’s really opening up that old wound, the trauma they’ve had as *** young kid. As young kids, we’re talking from 3 to 11 or 12 years old and reopening that trauma, and that’s the big issue. They never should have gone through that. They were guaranteed that this person’s being put away forever. These people are monsters. And back then it was the old thing, hey, video games, candy, get in my car, and now it’s much more sophisticated. It goes on now, daily. They have mobile devices to lure these kids, so it’s just, like I said, it’s, it’s not fair for the victims. Let’s start putting victims first and stop putting perpetrators first. For the media, can I ask you to identify yourselves before the questions? Thank you. So to answer your question and go back to it, there’s *** couple of different call to actions. Number one, the first one is obviously we need to have people show up at the en banc hearing or call in to stop this. That’s the, the first step that we need to take. The second step we need to take is to change the law. When you look back, this law was passed in 2017. This law was passed in 2017 and then it was doubled down by the legislature in 2020 where it was voted on yet again to reduce the age at which somebody is eligible from 60 to 50. So we need to change the law. That’s the second call to action. And the third thing is this, is those individuals, whether on the parole board that let Funston out or the individuals that are letting this sexual predator out. Individual commissioners on the parole board can be removed for incompetence. And the fact of the matter is this if you’re going to let this child molester out, when he’s saying all these things, when he has an above average risk of reoffending, when he talks about kidnapping and killing and molesting kids and those fantasies that he has, it’s incompetent to let him out. And if they let him out. Then those commissioners are frankly incompetent. So those are the three call to actions that we have and in regards to, you know, discussing the victims and notifying them. I’ve had to do that multiple times in many different cases as we see the law changes over the year, and I can tell you, and I’ll be respectful of our conversations with survivors because I, I wanna be respectful. But it is one of the most difficult conversations you ever have as *** prosecutor or *** victim advocate to sit down and talk to *** survivor when they believe that justice was there, that they had closure, that they would never have to go in front of *** parole board or even imagine that their perpetrator, the person that killed their family member or the person that molested them would get out and now. That is *** real possibility. It’s *** heartbreaking conversation that we should never have, and that’s why the system has broken their promises to victims and I agree with the sheriff we need to put victims first and not perpetrators. Next question. I’m Kate Wolf with the Sacramento Bee. Um, according to data compiled by Uncommon Law, no person who’s ever been released under the elderly parole program has ever committed *** sexual reoffense, and I just wonder, you know, how can you say that this person will do his action again if that. They, they, they haven’t been caught. And that’s the big issue. They have not been caught. On the reoffense rate. And these guys, and right now, they’re very sophisticated. And Mr. in, in, in this case, he admitted that he still fantasizes about kids. So sometimes you catch the dumb ones, not the smart ones, because the smart ones say, hey, I’m rehabilitated. I don’t think about kids anymore. He admitted it. And if you read his statement in the hearing, he admits to *** lot of troubling things. The smart ones don’t admit to it. And these days with devices, the smart ones are difficult to catch, and that’s *** big issue. These are the same folks and, and my thing is, how can anyone, including that organization, support. These two individuals being released. That’s the bottom line. That goes against all morals for, for most people. How, how do you, and then how do you reconcile that? How is it OK? These kids can never get their lives back. And as, as, as law enforcement and district attorney’s office, it’s our job to protect victims, and we take it very seriously. I’d like to address the statistics you know I prosecuted sex crimes for many years, um, before I became the DA and what we find out was child molestation cases in particular and even adult rape cases, um, the vast majority of them are never reported. They’re never reported or if they’re reported, it’s many, many years later and it’s been very difficult to put the case together. And we talk about age in terms of reoffending. I, I prosecuted the East area rapist, the Golden State Killer, and we caught him when he was 72 years old. I have video of him in his jail cell looking at *** female worker, and he is *** to her. He’s at the age of 72, and so we think that age and they age out, that’s not the truth in terms of reality. And my question to anybody who will cite *** statistic. That these individuals don’t reoffend if anybody wants to stand by those statistics, my question is, would you like Mr. Vogeling or Mr. Funston to move into the house right next to you? Would you allow that individual to take care of your kids? Would you allow that individual to babysit? Would you allow that individual to give your kid *** ride? And if anybody who wants to cite those statistics and willing to do that. And they probably should be charged for child endangerment. Undersheriff Ziegler here, so that, that, that’s *** great question. Um, I, I served, uh, did the sheriff’s, uh, public safety policy for 8 years at the legislature, and we were always trying to gather real statistics, right? I can’t tell you how many times, uh, anti, uh, public safety advocates got up and cited statistics, and then when you dug into how they collected that and how they got it. It was basically BS so many times. So what we’re really talking about here, as *** matter of fact, the sheriff ran *** bill for recidivism rate for CDCR couldn’t even make it past Public Safety Committee, ran that bill and it got, it got killed because they don’t want to know. Um, but let’s talk about this instead of the specifics. So this gentleman in the psychological report, I use that term loosely. He went during his psychological report, he said, I will never. Be fixed. I will always have *** desire for children. So they give them tools so he can work through that. You know what his tool is to tell himself mentally, stop it. That’s it. So the board of prison hearings is letting this person out that’s *** moderately high risk. How we see that moderately high risk. I will never be fixed. I have *** tool to tell myself stop it. It’s *** coin flip. At best, Is another victim worth the coin flip? Talk about statistics all day, but let’s talk about the facts of this, this guy. Yeah, Greg Me check cap radio, um, what kind of conversations have you guys had with the parole board, if any, and would have that consisted of? So the parole board hearing uh consists of and there’s *** lot of there’s *** lack of transparency honestly with the parole board, OK, but what we do on those is, um, my office has *** parole unit and we fight to keep people in and so we conduct an entire hearing and there is *** *** transcript of that hearing as well and you can talk to um our our media staff to to get *** copy of it but I’m gonna ask *** few things from you on this in that parole transcript. It identifies the victims and we’re going to redact that and I wanna make sure and and I’m sure you will as well that we need to respect the victim’s privacy that we need to ensure um that their privacy is protected they’ve already suffered enough um and so we will be redacting certain things in there to protect it. And there may be information in there that if released publicly in its full format, even with our best efforts to redact it, people may be able to identify who the victims are. I’d ask you really just in terms of your conscious to make sure that you take every step possible to protect the identity of those victims, um, but we fight it every step of the way and we’re gonna fight it again next week. But, but it goes back to, I read the uh BPH. Hearing notes and, and I’ve read our, our report that, that’s very detailed in this, and I, I, I, I, and I stress this enough, I can’t stress enough for your readers, your viewers, your listeners, do not sugarcoat this stuff. It makes people uncomfortable, but you know what, that’s *** small price to pay for these victims have gone through. Bottom line, we, we cannot, we have to be honest and open with this stuff and let them know what’s going on and that it’s not OK. It, this is just, it’s frustrating as hell. That we’re still dealing with this stuff. We, they shouldn’t breathe our air. They need to be locked away forever for the things they did. Some things you don’t recover from. This is one of them, when you steal *** child’s innocence, you molest *** child, horrific things. Come to my house, play video games, let’s buy toys. He has pictures of boys, has their underwear, cuts out pictures of young boys out of magazines, and has *** picture board, things like that. You can’t help them. So, focus elsewhere. You don’t rehabilitate sexual predators ever. Any other questions? Um, if not, we are available for one on one interview afterwards. But thank you and we will be providing you with the information regarding the call to action. Thank you. OK. yeah