A former inmate accused of murdering a Culver City man and another victim is part of a controversial prisoner release initiative and has been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, the News has learned.
The May 3 double homicide of Lucien Bergez, 89, and Erica Escobar, 27, of Santa Monica in Bergez’s home has sparked outrage in many law enforcement circles.
The alleged killer, Zachariah Timothy Lehnen, 30, was released as part of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s nonrevocable parole program, which began last year with the passage of Senate Bill X318. And it was recently discovered that the suspect suffers from schizophrenia, according to state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Marina del Rey), who would like to see the policy halted.
Under nonrevocable parole, certain “low-risk” parolees are subject to warrantless searches by police officers but are not required to attend parole revocation hearings if they are accused of a crime. They would only be returned to prison if they are arrested for a new offense and receive less supervision than other parolees.
“I believe that even though [Lehnen] has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, he should have had supervision so that he would have had to take his medication,” Lieu told the News.
Culver City police arrested Lehnen on May 5.
Culver City Police Officers Association President Adam Treanor believes the new parole law robs law enforcement of a critical tool needed for public safety. “This removes the expertise and the discretion of police and parole officers to investigate and potentially arrest someone who may be doing things that may violate their parole, like associating with gang members, using narcotics or other crimes,” Treanor said in a recent interview with the News. “It’s another restriction on law enforcement that unfortunately creates more victims.”
The Los Angeles Police Protective League joined Culver City’s association in denouncing the Department of Corrections’ policy.
“Unfortunately, in an effort to save money and with scant regard for public safety, the Department of Corrections rammed through their new system. Now, Lucien Bergez and Erica Escobar are Lehnen’s newest crime victims,” asserted the association’s president, Paul Weber. “The few dollars saved by Lehnen’s early release are not worth the pain and suffering that Department of Corrections has let be inflicted on these families.”
Culver City Police Department spokesman Lt. Ron Iizuka said police departments are required to abide by the law. “It’s the law, so we have to deal with it,” Iizuka said.
Lieu requested an investigation into how the law was being implemented last year, and in late May the Office of the Inspector General concluded its yearlong probe.
Within a six-month period last year, the Department of Corrections released up to 2,075 prisoners into the program who did not fit the criteria established to qualify for such release, and 450 of them were at “high risk for violence,” according to the report.
“One of the biggest problems with [the law] is that nearly half of the arrest data across California is missing or incomplete,” the senator explained. “And that creates inconsistencies or incomplete data. California doesn’t have the data programs to get an accurate accounting.”
The report concluded that the department had “compromise [d] public safety” by “understating offenders’ risk of reoffending and releasing high-risk offenders to unsupervised parole.”
Department of Corrections spokesman Oscar Hidalgo could not be reached for comment.
Budget woes were one of the reasons cited for the creation of the initiative, a notion that Treanor dismissed. “I don’t think the state’s budget problems should affect public safety,” he said.
Weber took issue with earlier statements by corrections officials who stated that the new nonrevocable parole policy could incentivize police officers.
“I can assure Oscar Hidalgo and the administrators at Department of Correction that Culver City homicide detectives could have done without this incentive to catch Zachariah Timothy Lehnen, as could the Los Angeles County deputy district attorneys now assigned to prosecute this case,” Weber said.
Treanor said the nonsupervised parole policy differs greatly from traditional parole and effectively handcuffs police at a time when resources are scarcer and jeopardizes public safety.
“Non-revocable parole is a dangerous contradiction that places the public at risk. In the past, offenders who were released back into society, many of them before serving a full prison term for their crime, were at least expected to comply with basic conditions of their supervised release under conditional parole,” Treanor reiterated. “With non-revocable parole, our law enforcement officers are unable to re-incarcerate parolees who violate their parole by continuing to engage in criminal behavior, be it using drugs, associating with gang members or committing other [Department of Corrections] parole violations that, in the past, would have returned them to prison before an innocent person became their next victim.”
Lieu said the non-revocable parole program is not funded for 2011-2012. “But if revenues keep dropping and we don’t get the resources for local governments for public safety, alternate ways of parole would have to be revisited,” the senator cautioned.
Lehnen is being charged with two counts of murder and is being held without bail in the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail. He is scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 15 at the LAX Courthouse in Division 142.