After major backlash over the scheduled release of a serial child molester through California's senior probation program, the 64-year-old now faces new charges that could keep him behind bars.
The news that David Allen Funston was to be released sparked outrage among victims, politicians and others. The former Sacramento County district attorney who prosecuted Funston said she strongly opposed his release: “I'm screaming about this.”
Funston, who was granted parole earlier this month, was to be released Thursday from state prison, but was arrested again that same day on new charges in a decades-old case that has not been tried. The charges he faces stem from a 1996 case in which he is accused of sexually assaulting a child in Roseville, according to the Placer County District Attorney's Office.
In 1999, he was convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child abuse and had been serving three consecutive sentences of 25 years to life in prison and a sentence of 20 years and eight months at the California Institution for Men in Chino. The sentences followed a series of cases in Sacramento County in which prosecutors said Funston lured children under age 7 with candy and, in at least one case, a Barbie doll to kidnap and sexually assault them, often under threat of violence.
A judge described him at the sentencing hearing as “the monster parents fear most.”
Placer County prosecutors, at the time, decided not to pursue the case against Funston in Roseville given the severity of the sentences he received in Sacramento County.
But given his scheduled release from state prison, prosecutors decided to file new charges against him. Placer County District. Lawyer. Morgan Gire said “changes in state law and recent parole board failures” led to his improper release.
“This individual was previously sentenced to multiple life sentences for extremely heinous crimes,” Gire said in a statement. “When changes in the law put our communities at risk, it is our duty to reevaluate those cases and act accordingly. David Allen Funston committed very real crimes against a Placer County child, and the statute of limitations allows us to hold him accountable for those crimes.”
He is now being held without bail in the Placer County Jail, charged with lewd and lascivious acts on a child, according to prosecutors. Funston's attorney, Maya Emig, said she had only recently learned of his arrest and had not yet had time to fully review the matter.
But he noted that he believes “in the justice system and the rule of law.”
Emig called the Board of Parole Hearings' decision to grant parole to the Funston elders “legal and fair.”
California's senior parole program generally considers the release of prisoners over age 50 who have been incarcerated for at least 20 continuous years, considering whether someone poses an unreasonable risk to public safety.
In Funston's case, commissioners said they did not believe Funston posed a significant danger because of the extensive self-help, therapy and sex offender treatment classes he completed, as well as his detailed plan to avoid repeating his crimes, the remorse he expressed and his history of good behavior in prison, according to a transcript of the Sept. 24 hearing.
At the hearing, Funston called himself a “selfish coward” for victimizing young children and said he was “disgusted and ashamed by my behavior and has great remorse for the harm I caused my victims and their families in the Sacramento community.”
“I'm so sorry,” he said.
But victims of his crimes, as well as prosecutors and elected leaders, have questioned the parole decision and called for its reversal.
“He's a sick individual,” one victim of Funston's violence told the Times. “What if he goes out and tries to find his former victims and wants to kill us?”
A spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom said the governor also did not agree with Funston's release and had asked the board to review the case. However, Newsom does not have the authority to overturn the parole decision.
Some state lawmakers also cited Funston's case as evidence that California's senior probation program needs reform, and recently introduced a bill that would exclude people convicted of sex crimes from being considered in the process.
