Child predator granted parole just 27 years into 355-year prison term in Newsom’s California

Gregory Vogelsang, 57, was convicted of nearly 30 counts of kidnapping and molesting multiple children between the ages of five and 11 in the 1990s in Sacramento. He had been sentenced to 355 years in prison, however, a three-person board granted Vogelsang parole in a November hearing, after serving just 27 years of his sentence.

A transcript of the November hearing obtained by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office showed Vogelsang talking about how he can’t fully get rid of his attraction to children. Vogelsand said, "I got to know what the internal triggers and external triggers and what the risky situations and the warning signs are for pedophilia. And like I said before, when I don't view a child as a sex object, I don't want to become aroused, but I know it's always going to be there," per Capital Public Radio.

He claimed that he had "normalized child molestation" as a child "due to my father abusing me from seven to 11. It wasn’t until I had dealt with my own childhood abuse of the pain, the harm, the guilt and the shame that I felt as a child, that today I can sit there and say that I honestly understand the psychological and the emotional damage that I was doing."

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper and Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho spoke out against Vogelsang being granted parole. The approval of parole for the child molester had been sent back to the board by Governor Gavin Newsom. A hearing is set for March 18 on the matter.

Cooper said of pedophiles, "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 … You don’t rehabilitate sexual predators. Ever."

Per the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, between 1995 and 1997, Vogelsang molested at least six boys. "Investigators determined he used grooming tactics to gain access to children by building trust with parents, inviting boys to sleepovers, buying them gifts, and taking them on outings before abusing that trust," the office said.

In one case, a boy said he was persuaded to get into Vogelsang’s vehicle under the guise of helping pick out a gift. "The child was driven to a residence and repeatedly assaulted despite crying and asking him to stop," the office said. Another boy spent nearly every weekend over at Vogelsang’s home because he was friends with Vogelsang’s family. The boy was repeatedly abused during those visits. The office said that boys’ underwear was discovered during the investigation in Vogelsang’s possession. He admitted that the underwear belonged to his victims, "and stated he kept them for sexual stimulation."

"Psychological evaluations later documented that Vogelsang acknowledged he remains primarily sexually attracted to boys between the ages of 5 and 11. He also admitted that as recently as 2020 he was still masturbating to fantasies about young boys. Even after determining that he was a greater risk to the public than 80% of other sexual offenders, the Board of Parole Hearings granted Vogelsang elderly parole," the office said.

Ho believes that Vogelsang will reoffend if released. "This inmate will molest again. And yet, this parole board is letting him out," Ho said. "And they’re letting him out under one of the most horrible, unjust laws that we have in the state of California. Elder parole."

In California, inmates over the age of 50 and having served at least 20 years are eligible for parole. Newsom signed a bill in 2020 that brought the minimum age down to 50 from 60, and the minimum time served from 25 down to 20. Amid the cases of both Vogelsang and David Allen Funston, lawmakers have introduced a new bill that would raise the minimum age to 65.