CA- New details emerge of other allegations against Garrido

This is the best historical account of Phillip Garrido's criminal history to date. One thing we must not forget, this man fit no mold, he IS NOT even close to a typical offender, in fact, throughout history there is not another like him. Lawmakers need to recognize that before they rush to craft laws as a result of this exceptional -once in a lifetime- case.

9-5-2009 California:

The decades-long interaction between Phillip Craig Garrido and the law is rife with blown opportunities, missteps and plain mistakes.

As details emerged Thursday about additional allegations against Garrido – including the alleged drugging and rape of a 14-year-old girl in 1972 – authorities explained their dealings with the 58-year-old convicted kidnapper and rapist.

But no one could explain how a man with Garrido's record got out and stayed out of prison, or how he allegedly kept Jaycee Lee Dugard hidden from sight for 18 years.

"If you look at the reports of the psychiatrists and others involved, it is incomprehensible that any objective body would ever allow this man back into society," said former U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott, who is acting as spokesman for El Dorado County prosecutors. "It is just an absolute dereliction of duty."

The federal prosecutor who thought he had put Garrido away for decades when he convicted him of kidnapping in 1977 and won a 50-year sentence was equally blunt.

"It is so horrendous," said Leland Lutfy, now an attorney in Las Vegas.

Here, based on court and police records and interviews, is what happened:

Garrido's first brush with the law came in 1969, when he was 18. He once testified that he was arrested for possession of marijuana and LSD in Contra Costa County and served a short time at a county facility.

In 1972, he was arrested in the rape of the 14-year-old girl, Antioch police revealed Thursday.

Antioch Police Lt. Leonard Orman told The Bee that the incident began as the 14-year-old and a friend were walking to the public library on West 18th Street in Antioch.

"On the way there, the girl tells our victim they're going to meet a couple of guys," Orman said. "The victim assumes these guys are going to be age-appropriate, and when they get there it's a couple of guys quite a bit older than they expected."

One of the men was Garrido, Orman said, and they began giving the girls barbiturates and driving around the city. For some reason that Orman said isn't clear, police began chasing the car but the men eluded officers.

"Essentially, from there the girl is provided more barbiturates, and she remembers next waking up in a motel in Antioch," Orman said. "She remembers Garrido being there and she remembers being repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted, by him."

The girl's parents found her and Garrido at the motel a day or two after she disappeared, and Garrido was arrested, Orman said. The Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office tried to prosecute but "at the preliminary hearing the victim decides she's not going to testify and charges against Garrido are dismissed," Orman said.

After Garrido's arrest last week in the Dugard kidnapping, the alleged rape victim in the 1972 case called Antioch police. Orman said that although there may be statute of limitations obstacles to filing new charges, the woman wanted to be certain authorities knew Garrido may have attacked multiple women.

Another attack is described in federal court documents involving Garrido's kidnapping trial in Reno in 1977 for his abduction of 25-year-old Katherine Callaway.

He abducted Callaway and raped her at a Reno storage shed after she agreed to give him a ride from a South Lake Tahoe parking lot, where he said his car had broken down. A passing police officer stumbled across Garrido and his victim and arrested him.

Sentenced to 50 years

Lutfy, the federal prosecutor, told The Bee on Thursday that an hour before Garrido kidnapped Callaway he nearly abducted another young woman.

In that incident, he approached the woman and also told her his car had broken down.

"She agreed to give him a lift, and they went off on a side street and (when) she stopped the car he handcuffed one of her arms, only one," Lutfy said from his law office. "She slammed on the brake and literally jumped out of the car.

"He was hanging onto the other end of the handcuff. The vehicle was still moving and she was running alongside of it. She was yelling, 'Let me go! I won't tell anyone!' He took off the handcuff and tried to talk her into getting back into the car."

Lutfy said that when Garrido's lawyer introduced an insanity defense during the kidnap trial, Lutfy tried to include evidence of the other abduction attempt to show that Garrido had methodically hunted women, "to show motive, opportunity, intent and preparation."

The judge rejected the effort, saying Lutfy had already provided ample evidence against Garrido.

He was convicted in federal court of kidnapping Callaway and in Nevada's Washoe Superior Court of rape. On March 11, 1977, he was given a 50-year sentence in federal prison. At the time, authorities thought he would spend at least 30 years in custody.

But he didn't.

When Garrido went before the Nevada state court for sentencing on the rape charge on April 11, 1977, his defense attorney told the judge Garrido deserved to serve his sentences concurrently.

"Everybody is trying to get a pound of his flesh, but he's presently under a 50-year sentence in the federal jurisdiction," Deputy Public Defender Ronald Bath told the judge, according to transcripts of the sentencing.

Bath added that he expected California authorities to also file kidnapping charges in the case and "at this point everybody should realize that there is only so many years in someone's life to sentence him."

California prosecutors did not file charges against Garrido.

The prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Michael E. Malloy, then told the judge that Bath had informed him Garrido would have to serve two-thirds of his federal sentence at a minimum. With that assurance, the judge sentenced Garrido to five years to life, but ordered that it be served concurrently with the federal sentence.

In fact, the law at the time stated that "a prisoner shall be eligible for release on parole after serving one-third of such term or terms or after serving 10 years of a life sentence or of a sentence of over 30 years, except as otherwise provided by law."

That law was repealed in 1987; today federal prisoners serve 85 percent of their sentence.

Released after 11 years

In May 1978, nearly one year into his sentence at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., Garrido asked for a reduction of his sentence and provided a prison psychological examination that found "prognosis for successful transition to the community is very good."

The psychologist, J.B. Kiehlbauch, wrote in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada that "the likelihood of further extralegal behaviors on Mr. Garrido's part is seen as minimal." Kiehlbauch also offered to recommend his release to a treatment program "in the very near future."

Lutfy, the assistant U.S. attorney who put Garrido away, objected vehemently, saying that in the attack on Callaway, "Garrido treated this girl no better than he would a side of beef."

The 50-year federal sentence remained in place, and Garrido was transferred to the Lompoc federal prison in California where he was imprisoned until January 1988, when he gained parole on the federal kidnapping charge. He was transferred to a Nevada state prison on Jan. 22, 1988, on the rape charge. Seven months and four days later the Nevada parole board voted 3-2 to release him.

Garrido returned to Antioch, moving in with his mother and Nancy Garrido, whom he married while in Leavenworth. He remained under the supervision of federal parole officials.

It was while he was on parole, authorities say, that he and his wife allegedly abducted 11-year-old Dugard on June 10, 1991, while she was a fifth-grader on her way to school in Meyers, near South Lake Tahoe.

Officials say the couple hid Dugard in Antioch in a secret section of the home's backyard. Neither the FBI nor El Dorado County detectives ever looked at Garrido as a suspect in the kidnapping.

Parole agent never saw girl

Then began a series of missed chances to find Dugard.

Less than two years after the blond girl was kidnapped, Garrido violated parole with a marijuana offense. Nevada corrections officials have said he was returned to federal prison briefly, and authorities believe Nancy Garrido kept watch over the girl.

Nevada parole board spokeswoman Gail Powell told The Bee on Thursday, however, that federal officials never informed Nevada of the violation. "If we had been informed, then Nevada would have taken some action," she said. "We could have done anything from revoking him to bringing him back."

In fact, Garrido wasn't returned to federal prison on the violation, a federal law enforcement source told The Bee on Thursday. He was ordered held in home confinement in the Antioch house from May 10, 1993, until Aug. 31, 1993.

As part of the home confinement process, a parolee is fitted with a GPS monitoring device, and federal officials come to the home to inspect it and install the equipment.

Records of this violation could not be located Thursday, and a federal parole spokesman did not respond to a call for comment.

In June 1999, Garrido's supervision was transferred to California parole officials, and state officials say he was visited regularly. His parole agent apparently never saw Dugard or the two girls she gave birth to while in captivity.

After all these years, Lutfy said Garrido stands out as someone who needed to be watched more closely than other prisoners, someone who never should have been considered for early release.

"There are always exceptions," Lutfy said. "Clearly, he was an exception." ..Source.. by Sam Stanton and Denny Walsh