The California judge who sentenced David Funston called him “the monster parents fear the most.” Funston was convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation in 1999. One of his victims — who was four years old when Funston kidnapped and assaulted her — told the Los Angeles Times: “He shouldn’t be breathing the same air that we’re breathing at all.” Gavin Newsom released him under the state’s “elderly parole program.”
Funston isn’t alone. The parade keeps coming. Gregory Lee Vogelsang molested multiple children in the 1990s and was sentenced to 355 years in prison. He too is being released under the same program, which allows inmates to get parole if they’ve served at least 25 years and reached age 60.
One legislator, Assemblywoman Stephanie Nguyen, tried to fight back. She proposed raising the eligibility age to 75. The proposal was watered down to 65. It hasn’t passed because the Prison Policy Initiative pushed back, citing research on declining recidivism among offenders over 65.
Sacramento prosecutor Anne Marie Schubert cut through the theory with one question about the real case at hand: “David Funston was released at 64. Do we all feel safer from this pedophile simply by waiting until he’s 65? Age does not erase predatory behavior.”
She’s right. Predatory behavior doesn’t have an expiration date. The children these men destroyed don’t get a reset when their abuser turns 60. The four-year-old who became a victim doesn’t get her childhood back because a parole board decided Funston had aged out of dangerousness.
Child rapists are only part of the story. Christine Loyd murdered two senior citizens for money and was sentenced to 55 years to life. A California judge described her as “one of the most evil and cold-blooded murderers” he had ever seen. Newsom released her after 31 years.
Joseph Tidwell was driving on methamphetamine and other drugs when he crossed the center line and killed two members of the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue Team — Scott Timothy Johnson, 30, and Philip Newton Calvert, 58 — who were on their way to find a missing hiker. Several others were seriously injured. Tidwell had prior DUI arrests. He was sentenced to 45 years to life. He served 22. His parole awaits Newsom’s review.
This is the man who wants to be president of the United States. Not as an accident of his tenure — as an intended policy outcome. Newsom signed AB 2727 instead of fighting for the communities being endangered by it. He has declined to stop multiple releases when he had the authority to do so. And at least one person he freed has publicly announced he will vote for Newsom in 2028.
Release the criminals. Earn the votes. Call it compassion. That’s the entire calculation. And he wants to run this experiment on the rest of America.
