Phillip and Nancy Garrido have confessed to authorities that they
kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard in 1991 and held her captive for 18 years in
a ramshackle compound in Northern California, where she gave birth to
two daughters after being repeatedly raped, a defense attorney said
Monday.

Stephen Tapson, Nancy's court-appointed attorney, told reporters outside
El Dorado County Superior Court that the couple confessed to the
crimes, which made international headlines when Dugard was discovered
nearly two years ago, because Phillip, 59, is hoping that his wife's
sentence will be reduced.

Tapson said authorities have offered Nancy, 55, a plea agreement that
would put her behind bars for nearly 242 years to life and have offered
Phillip a sentence of 440 years to life.

After a brief hearing Monday afternoon, Tapson said the couple had met
with sheriff's investigators within the last month and had given a "full
confession."

They have been charged with nearly 30 counts of kidnapping, rape and
false imprisonment. According to a grand jury indictment, Phillip
videotaped some of the rapes. He fathered Dugard's children.

"As far as being involved in any of the sexual stuff, she wasn't,"
Tapson said of Nancy. "She's guilty, obviously, of kidnapping and a
bunch of other charges…. She should be able to walk on the beach,
probably with a walker, at some point in time before she dies."

The couple were married in 1981 at the U.S. penitentiary in Leavenworth,
Kan., where Phillip was serving a 50-year sentence for a 1976
kidnapping and rape.

"Listen, she had a normal life, goes to Leavenworth, gets enthralled
with Mr. Garrido, never uses drugs, never been in trouble, gets in his
grasp and things go down the tubes from there," Tapson said, when asked
why Nancy should be shown leniency.

---

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"Admittedly, she cooperated with him
under his authority, under his thumb," he said. "Obviously, at trial
we're going to have to argue Stockholm syndrome and Patty Hearst stuff
and so on. There's already psychiatric evidence to show that she was
under his thumb, or his whatever you want to call it. Even the D.A. says
he's a master manipulator."

Neither Susan Gellman, Phillip's attorney, nor Dist. Atty. Vern Pierson returned calls for comment.

Dugard, now 30 and living in seclusion, was an 11-year-old schoolgirl
when the Garridos drove down her quiet South Lake Tahoe street and
snatched her, screaming, as her horrified stepfather watched.

Phillip was the driver and Nancy grabbed the girl, Tapson said Monday.

They took her to Antioch, Calif., where they kept her imprisoned for 18
years in tents and soundproof shacks in their backyard. She was
repeatedly raped. Nancy, a former nurse's aide, delivered Dugard's two
babies there.

After the kidnapping, Dugard never saw a doctor and never set foot in a classroom.

Nancy "was their mother," Tapson said, in what he described as "a bizarre family" that formed "after all the evil stopped."

"She fed them, took them places. They had that kind of relationship," he said. "Jaycee has admitted she was like a mother."

The Garridos are being held in El Dorado County Jail.

Judge Douglas C. Phimister ruled last month that Phillip, who now sports
a salt-and-pepper beard, is competent to stand trial; he has yet to
enter a plea. His arraignment was scheduled for Monday but has been
continued until March 17.

Nancy has pleaded not guilty. A trial date has yet to be set.

Tapson said the Garridos "gave full, complete statements to the
Sheriff's Department in the last month or so" at the request of
investigators. The sheriff's officials had asked to speak to the
defendants, and Tapson and Gellman approved the request.

The couple told authorities "everything they wanted to know," Tapson
said, "except they didn't produce any missing bodies. There's no other
victims."

The interviews occurred at the detectives bureau here, and Dugard was present when Nancy spoke to the authorities.

Tapson said he believed the encounter was designed "hopefully to get an opinion from [Dugard] about Nancy."

Nancy's attorney, who was present, said he could not see Dugard's reaction, but he could see his client's. "Tears," he said.

Tapson said that he thinks Nancy deserves a sentence of 20 to 30 years
in prison for the crimes she committed, and that 241 years and eight
months to life is inappropriate.

He said he wants to know what Dugard thinks.

"Tell Jaycee to give me a call," he said to reporters Monday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-garrido-20110301,0,4018199.story

Nancy knew he had raped and killed before, so as soon as he suggested they kidnap a child she should have gone to the police. No sympathy for her and no mercy IMO. I reckon a lot of woman who choose evil criminals would commit the crimes themselves if they were men, but instead do it by proxy.

A hitch in the grand jury process that indicted the Garridos last
September prompted Phillip Garrido to make a surprise not guilty plea on
Thursday in the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping case.
The plea came as a surprise after an attorney said Garrido
had made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty and serve life in
prison. Garrido and his wife Nancy are charged with abducting
Dugard, who was 11 at the time, from outside her South Lake Tahoe home
in 1991 and holding her captive for 18 years. Garrido is also charged
with fathering her two children by rape. A guilty plea would have spared Dugard the pain of a trial. The problem was apparently over the grand jurors and how they were
selected. Phillip Garrido's attorney Susan Gellma said that she had
questions about the racial and geographic makeup of the grand jury. Gellman is upset that Nancy Garrido's attorney is assuming facts about
the case that may not be true, and says a guilty plea was never agreed
to, although it was discussed. Gellman said she's determined to zealously protect Phillip's rights, and said she will not "roll over and play dead."
Nancy's Garrido's attorney Stephen Tapson is also disappointed. He
was hoping that a guilty plea would mean leniency for Nancy Garrido, who
says she still thinks about Dugard to this day. "She does not want Jaycee to go through all this stuff and has consistently said that," Tapson said. Nancy Garrido has pleaded not guilty and reportedly plans to go to trial unless she gets a better plea deal. A trial date of Aug. 1 has been set for both defendants. Both have previously confessed to the crime. Dugard, now 30, has said through her spokesman that she would be willing to testify if the cases went to trial.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/state&id=8059172

What assholes!!!!!! Poor Jaycee. This is disgraceful. We can't expect the guilty slime to show any compassion, but if I was the lawyer I'd walk out before I did this to Jaycee. Jaycee and her children have been through enough, and now they have to relive it all again in public. I'm hopping mad about this! They need to be able to put this behind them.

Ending a sordid criminal ordeal that began two decades ago with a
kidnapping on a South Lake Tahoe street, a convicted sex offender and
his wife pleaded guilty on Thursday to the abduction, rape and
imprisonment of Jaycee Lee Dugard. Ms. Dugard, then 11 years old and now 30, was kidnapped in 1991 and
subsequently held and sexually assaulted by Philip Garrido, now 60, and
his wife, Nancy, 55, at their home outside Antioch, Calif., a Bay Area
suburb. Mr. Garrido, who was on parole for a previous rape conviction,
fathered two daughters by Ms. Dugard and built a secret backyard
compound to hold her and the children. That nightmare ended in 2009 when the authorities discovered Ms. Dugard
and her children and arrested the Garridos, who had become increasingly
open about bringing their captives into the world, sometimes passing
them off as their own children and using Ms. Dugard to work in a family
printing business. A lengthy legal tussle followed the couple’s arrest, with a trial
tentatively planned for August. But on Thursday, both Mr. Garrido and
his wife pleaded guilty, with Mr. Garrido facing a maximum sentence of
431 years in prison, and his wife 36 years to life. Both waived their
right to appeal — sentencing is scheduled for June 2 — and are expected
to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Vern Pierson, the district attorney in El Dorado County, which covers
South Lake Tahoe, thanked Ms. Dugard for her help in the case, which
included testifying to a grand jury in September, adding that the plea
deal would spare her “the grief and trauma” of a trial. “Were it not for Jaycee’s strong cooperation with our office and the
prosecution of the Garridos, we would not have been able to firmly stand
by our position to take this case to jury trial,” Mr. Pierson said in a
statement. “Jaycee’s courage and willingness to confront her abductors
in court directly led to the defendants’ plea and life sentences.”
In a statement, Ms. Dugard said she was relieved that the Garridos had
“finally acknowledged their guilt and confessed to their crimes against
me and my family.” Outside court, Stephen Tapson, Ms. Garrido’s lawyer, said both
defendants agreed to the plea after prosecutors dropped some charges
against Ms. Garrido providing Mr. Garrido pleaded guilty to almost the
full indictment, The Associated Press reported. “She obviously committed a serious wrong,” Mr. Tapson said, “but in her
view now, she’s made peace with God and wants to get on with life,
what’s left of it.” Susan Gellman, Mr. Garrido’s lawyer, could not be reached for comment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/us/29dugard.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Couple to be sentenced in Jaycee Dugard kidnapping

By the CNN Wire Staff
June 2, 2011 5:49 a.m. EDT


(CNN) -- Two decades after kidnapping Jaycee Dugard in front of her California home, Phillip and Nancy Garrido will be sentenced to life in prison Thursday.
The married couple pleaded guilty in late April in El Dorado Superior Court to the kidnapping and sexual assault of Dugard, whom they held captive from age 11 through 29.
They abducted Dugard and held her in a hidden compound on their home's grounds in Antioch, California.
Dugard was snatched from the street in front of her home in South Lake Tahoe, California, in 1991. Authorities found her in 2009.
Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender on parole at the time of his arrest, is accused of fathering two daughters with Dugard during her captivity.
California law doesn't provide for a death penalty for the offenses committed by the Garridos, District Attorney Vern Pierson said in April.
Phillip Garrido, 60, pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping and 13 counts of sexual assault, Pierson said. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 431 years to life in prison, and he has waived his right to appeal, Pierson said.
Nancy Garrido, 55, pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, one count of rape by force, and to California's "one strike" rape law, Pierson said.
She will be sentenced to the negotiated disposition of life in prison, Pierson said. She will receive a 25-years-to-life sentence under the "one strike" rape law, plus 11 years, which is the maximum possible sentence for the kidnapping charges based upon the sentencing laws in 1991, Pierson said.

Nancy Garrido also has waived her right to appeal, prosecutors said. Her plea was offered contingent upon Phillip Garrido pleading guilty and waiving his right to appeal, prosecutors said.



http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/06/02/california.garridos.sentencing/index.html

Nancy Garrido gets 36 years to life in Jaycee Dugard kidnapping

(CNN) -- Nancy Garrido was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison for her role in the kidnapping and sexual assault of Jaycee Dugard, Garrido's attorney said Thursday.
She and her husband, Phillip Garrido, held Dugard captive from the time the girl was 11 until she was 29.
Phillip Garrido also is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in an El Dorado County, California, court.
The married couple pleaded guilty in late April in El Dorado Superior Court to the kidnapping and sexual assault of Dugard, whom they held captive from age 11 until she was 29.
They abducted Dugard when she was 11, and held her in a hidden compound on their home's grounds in Antioch, California.

read more>

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/06/02/california.garridos.sentencing/

Jaycee Dugard says abductors who held her captive 18 years stole her life

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jun 2, 2011 12:40PM



PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A California woman who was held captive for 18 years said her life was stolen by her abductors as she made her first public statement about the ordeal in an emotional declaration her mother read at the captors’ sentencing hearing Thursday.

Phillip and Nancy Garrido, both dressed in orange jumpsuits made no eye contact with anyone in the room and kept their heads down as Jaycee Dugard’s mother, Terry Probyn, read her daughter’s statement at the ongoing hearing, which Dugard did not attend.

“I chose not to be here today because I refuse to waste another second of my life in your presence,” Dugard wrote in a portion of the statement directed to Phillip Garrido. “Everything you ever did to me was wrong and I hope one day you will see that.”

“I hated every second of every day for 18 years,” she said. “You stole my life and that of my family.”

The two defendants pleaded guilty in April to kidnapping and raping Dugard, now 31, when she was 11. She was confined to a hidden backyard compound where she eventually lived with two daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido.

The plea deal calls for Phillip Garrido to receive a prison term of 431 years to life. He also pleaded guilty to committing lewd acts captured on video.

Nancy Garrido was sentenced to 36 years to life. Both have waived their right to appeal.

The deal was designed, in part, to spare Dugard and her children from having to testify at a trial.

In the statement, Dugard called Phillip Garrido a liar and said what Nancy Garrido did to her was evil. She said she hoped both of them would have as many sleepless nights as she had.

“There is no God in the universe that would condone your actions,” Dugard said in a portion of the statement directed to Nancy Garrido.

Dugard also said she was doing well now and told Phillip Garrido “you do not matter anymore.”

Dugard was given an opportunity to present El Dorado County Superior Judge Douglas Phimister with an oral or written statement about her experience. Prosecutors typically encourage crime victims and their families to prepare detailed victim impact statements so courts can factor their suffering into sentencing decisions.

Dugard, who has written a memoir set to be published next month, has strived to preserve her privacy in the 22 months since she was identified during a chance meeting with Phillip Garrido’s parole officer.

In a presentencing memo justifying a sentence of hundreds of years for Phillip Garrido, who was on parole for a 1976 rape and kidnapping when Dugard was taken, District Attorney Vern Pierson said that Dugard spent the first one-and-a-half years after her kidnapping locked in a backyard shed.

She did not leave the backyard for the first four years after her abduction.

“Phillip Garrido should have spent the rest of his life in prison for the crimes he committed in 1976. He never should have been allowed back on the street to even have the opportunity to commit the crimes he committed in this case,” Pierson said. Garrido “stole the childhood and innocence from an 11-year-old child.”

The Garridos and their defense lawyers also have an opportunity to address Judge Phimister, but attorney Susan Gellman, who represents Phillip Garrido, said he won’t have a statement.

Defendants often use sentencing hearings to express remorse or provide biographical information that could persuade a court to impose a lighter sentence.

Dugard was grabbed by Nancy Garrido from the South Lake Tahoe street where her family lived and forced into a car driven by Phillip Garrido on June 10, 1991. The abduction occurred as Dugard’s stepfather watched her walk to a school bus stop.

Authorities have said the couple drove the girl 168 miles south to their home in Antioch and held her prisoner there for the next 18 years, four months and 16 days. At first, she was locked in the shed then confined to a series of tents she would come to share with the daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido and delivered by his wife.

The defendants were arrested in August 2009 after Phillip Garrido inexplicably brought his ragtag clan to a meeting with his parole officer, who had no idea the convicted rapist had been living with a young woman and two girls he described as his nieces.

Dugard at first tried to conceal her identity, telling authorities she was hiding from an abusive husband in Minnesota and giving her name as Alyssa, Garrido eventually acknowledged kidnapping her, and Dugard disclosed her identity.

Her reappearance proved a costly embarrassment for California parole officials, who had to explain how a parolee under intensive supervision could live with his victim and have children with her undetected.

The situation existed despite repeated surprise home visits and a woman telling sheriff’s deputies in 2006 that her sex offender neighbor was living with small children.

The state last year paid Dugard a $20 million settlement under which officials acknowledged repeated mistakes were made by parole agents responsible for monitoring Garrido. California has since increased monitoring of sex offenders.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/5736535-418/jaycee-dugard-says-abductors-who-held-her-captive-18-years-stole-her-life.html

Garrido's Sentenced for Dugard Kidnapping, Jaycee Statement Read in Court


PLACERVILLE—

Nearly 20 years after abducting an 11-year-old girl from her street in South Lake Tahoe, Phillip and Nancy Garrido were sentenced for their crimes.
Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped in 1991, and held captive for 18 years before she was discovered. The couple pleaded guilty in April.
Dugard’s aunt and mother read impact statements during Thursday’s sentencing hearing. Jaycee’s statement explained why she herself did not attend, “I chose not to be here because I don't want to waste another second in your presence”.
Nancy’s attorney, Stephen Tapson said Jaycee’s mom and aunt read a statement from Jaycee and her sister, who was only a young child when Jaycee was kidnapped. In the statement Dugard’s family called the Garrido’s some “awful things”.
According to Tapson, Nancy’s statement to the court and Dugard was remorseful, “Every time I look in the mirror I don’t like what I see … I can give you an explanation but they will sound like an excuse, and there is no excuse … “ for what she did. Tapson repeated Nancy’s position during the captivity as a mother-figure to Dugard; delivering her children and caring for them. Nancy was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison.
Phillip was sentenced to 431 years to life. He was eligible for around 590 years, but the judge decided to stay within the plea deal and sentenced Phillip to 431. During the nearly hour-long proceeding, the judge said Garrido was the “poster child for sexual predator” and he “redefined the word ‘slavery’”.
His lawyer, Susan Gellman said Phillip never, ever wanted to go to trial, “he did what he did today for her (Dugard),you know, he entered this plea for her so she wouldn’t have to go through a trial.” Gellman went on to say “He (Phillip) acknowledged his guilt, he admitted what he did was wrong, of course there is remorse.”
Phillip had a competency hearing earlier in the proceedings. Gellman said “Phillip never ever, ever wanted to go to trial. The only confusion he had, he had confusion about who witnesses would be and what the trial would be about, and that’s what the competency hearing was about. But he never wanted to go to trial.”
Katie Callaway Hall, who was raped Phillip Garrido in Reno in the 1970’s, attended Thursday’s sentencing. She did not attend the sentencing for her own case, where Phillip got sentenced to life. He only served 11 years of that sentence.
Hall was hoping to make a victim impact statement at the sentencing on the Dugard charges, but the El Dorado County Judge recently decided not to let her make a statement. She told the media outside the courtroom she hopes Phillip “rots in hell”.
Attorneys for Phillip and Nancy arrived at the El Dorado County courthouse in Placerville Thursday morning. Susan Gellman, who represents Phillip Garrido, shouted at the waiting media as she passed by, “My fifteen minutes are over people”; a reference to the intense media coverage this case has gotten.
Phillip Garrido was arrested for an unrelated crime in August 2009 in Berkeley. After more digging by detectives, Jaycee told officers who she was and that she had been kidnapped.
An investigation uncovered deplorable living conditions at the Garrido’s Antioch home, and a tent-room in the backyard where Jaycee and her two daughters were living. Investigators say the two daughters were fathered by Garrido.
Dugard was reunited with her family, and plans to release a biography of her experience later this summer called “A Stolen Life”.

http://www.wtvr.com/news/ktxl-garridos-sentenced-thursday-20110602,0,6966472.story

A newly
released report reads like a laundry list of oversights by agents
charged with monitoring Phillip Garrido's federal parole in the 1990s,
when he kidnapped and began his 18-year imprisonment of Jaycee Dugard.The
confidential review released Friday by James Ware, chief district judge
for the Bay Area, was meant to bring attention to improvements made in
monitoring parolees still under federal watch.Written in
December, it echoes a 2010 audit of Garrido's supervision by state
parole agents, outlining a general lack of close supervision of the now
imprisoned two-time kidnapper and rapist.Among the report's criticisms are that agents:

• Downplayed repeated drug violations and substituted therapists' assessments for their own
  
• Never made sure Garrido registered as a sex offender
  
• Kept such loose track of him that when after he started habituallyraping the captive Dugard in 1991, his parole check-ins were at the agents' office rather than his home near Antioch.
  

Garrido was the charge of federal officers between 1988, when he was released
from prison for the 1976 kidnapping and rape of a South Lake Tahoe
woman, and 1999, when his parole was transferred to the state.Other
complaints about Garrido made to agents include descriptions of him as a
"time bomb," and agents' lack of concern for the sex felon's
aspirations to sell water purifiers door-to-door.By the end of his federal parole term,
officials lauded Garrido as a model parolee, just as state agents did on
the four occasions they tried to release him from lifetime parole for the kidnapping.

The report says that while his federal
supervision was substandard, it does not mean agents working properly
would have found Dugard, noting that state agents and local police
visiting his home during the second decade of Garrido's parole also
missed the secret backyard compound Dugard was freed from in August
2009.Additionally, the report trumpets the adoption of specific
sex-offender policies in 2003, followed by the federal probation system
coming under new management, retraining officers, and hitting its
targets for routine home inspections.Last month, Phillip Garrido
began serving a sentence of 431 years to life in prison, while his wife,
Nancy Garrido, is serving 36 years to life.
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_18442671?source=rss

Kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard, who gave birth to two children
during her 18 years in captivity, said she did what she had to do to
survive. During a wide-ranging interview with ABC News' Diane
Sawyer, set to air Sunday night, Dugard opened up about her experiences
at the hands of her captors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido. Dugard
was just 11 years old when she was abducted in 1991 from the street in
front of her South Lake Tahoe, California, home. The Garridos held her
and her two children in a hidden compound of sheds and tarpaulins until
she was found in 2009. Dugard is now 31 and working to build a new life, one in which she and her children are finally free. "There's
a switch that I had to shut off," she told Sawyer, according to
excerpts posted on the network's website before the interview aired. "I
can't imagine being beaten to death, you know? And you can't imagine
being kidnapped and raped, you know? So, it's just, you just do what you
have to do to survive." Dugard recounted the first moment Phillip Garrido entered her life. She
was on her way to school, wearing her favorite shirt and a ring her
mother had given her, ABC reported, when all of a sudden Dugard felt
"tingly" and "numb." Phillip had shocked her with a stun gun, the
network said. The Garridos then put her in their car. She recalled
Phillip laughing at one point, and telling his wife: "I can't believe we
got away with it." "It was like the most horrible moment of your life times ten," Dugard told ABC. She also recalled the first time she gave birth, in the backyard, at just 14 years old. "I
didn't know I was in labor," Dugard said. "Then I saw her. She was
beautiful. I felt like I wasn't alone anymore. (I) had somebody that was
mine ... And I knew I could never let anything happen to her," she
said, wiping away tears. Throughout her 18-year ordeal, Dugard
managed to hold onto the ring her mother had given her and the hope that
she would one day be reunited with her family, ABC reported. "I
wanted to see her more than anything," she said about her mother. "I
would cry every day. (It was) hardest when I would think about her and
what she was doing and then -- trying to convince myself she was better
without me. "Worried I'd forget what she looked like, or what she sounded like. Would she forget me?" Her mother, Terry Probyn, also appeared in the ABC interview. Last
month, a judge sentenced Phillip Garrido to 431 years in prison after
he pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping and 12 counts of sexual
assault. His wife Nancy Garrido got 36 years to life in prison for her
role in the crimes, including kidnapping and one count of rape by force.
The couple had pleaded guilty in late April in El Dorado Superior
Court. A statement from Dugard, read by her mother at the
sentencing hearing, called the Garridos "evil" and described her
kidnapping by them as a "sexual perversion." During the ABC interview, she stressed she is moving on with her life. Dugard said she wants to study writing, ABC reported. She spoke out just days before her memoir, "A Stolen Life," is scheduled to be released. The book is due in stores on Tuesday.
"I
don't feel like I have this rage inside of me that's building," Dugard
said. "I refuse to let him have that. He can't have me."


http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/10/dugard.abc.interview/

They were simple words but resonated loudly.


"My name is Jaycee Dugard, and I want to say that because for a
long time I wasn't able to say my name and so it feels good," the
soft-spoken woman told the crowd at an awards ceremony Friday night in
New York. "I am truly honored to be here tonight with these amazing
women who have done and been through so much more than me."




Dugard, 31, who had been kidnapped at age 11 and held prison for 18 years, appeared at her first public event since her ordeal.


She received the Inspiration Award at fashion
designer-philanthropist Diane von Furstenberg's DVF Awards held at the
United Nations honoring women for leadership, strength and courage to
transform the lives of other women.


Dugard, who had two children fathered by her kidnapper, got
emotional when she thanked her mother's unwavering support and faith.


"I have to say I felt her hope for many years and it gave me the
strength to go on and live," Dugard said. "And I did live. I have two
beautiful daughters who I love with all my heart."


Speaking about her JAYC Foundation that helps families
recovering from abduction, she closed her speech by urging people to
empower themselves by helping others.


"My hope is to be remembered for what I do, not to what happened to me," she said with a smile.


Before Dugard took to the stage, Winfrey – who received the
Lifetime Leadership award – said she had been eager to meet Dugard "to
tell her how much her story and her life meant to me."



Winfrey recounted Dugard's rape and abduction saying she has
"endured more than most have the capacity to even imagine" and praised
her grace and determination to survive, and most importantly, her desire
to help others in need.


"I am so proud of you," said Winfrey. "You are using your
courage and your strength and your power to show the world that you
care."

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20577607,00.html

Jaycee Dugard case misconduct denied

By Demian Bulwa
Updated 8:54 p.m., Monday, August 20, 2012

U.S. Justice Department attorneys fighting a federal lawsuit filed by kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard denied that they engaged in misconduct by persuading a critical expert witness to stay out of the case.

In court documents filed earlier this month, Dugard's attorneys said Carol Getty, a U.S. parole commissioner from 1983 to 1996, was lined up as Dugard's sole expert witness until the Justice Department called her on Aug. 1. They asked for severe sanctions against the government.

But the Justice Department, in a response filed Aug. 10 with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, said Getty is actually a direct witness in the case, having once released Dugard's kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, from prison in 1993.

The government attorneys admitted they spoke to Getty after she initiated the contact with them.

"Plaintiffs cannot convert a (direct) witness, who is a former employee of the United States, to an expert witness and wall her off," wrote government attorney Bridget Bailey Lipscomb in response.

Dugard sued for unspecified damages in September, saying the government's failure to properly supervise Garrido - on parole for a prior rape conviction - allowed him to abduct her from South Lake Tahoe in 1991, when she was 11.

For 18 years, Garrido and his wife kept Dugard in a backyard compound near Antioch, where she bore two children fathered by Garrido. He was sentenced last year to 431 years in prison, while his wife, Nancy Garrido, received a term of 36 years to life.

The Justice Department said its lawyers called Getty only after she contacted the parole commission on Aug. 1 to say she was "uncomfortable with a declaration that plaintiffs' (Dugard's) attorneys had prepared for her to sign."

According to the government, Getty said she never agreed to serve as an expert witness.

In another filing on Friday, Dugard's attorneys countered that point with an e-mail Getty sent them in April. In response to being told she would be paid $300 per hour as an "expert consultant," Getty wrote, "I look forward to working with you as well."

Getty did not respond to a Chronicle request for comment on Monday.

Records filed by the Justice Department show Getty released Garrido in April 1993 from a federal prison in Dublin, placing him on home confinement for four months after he served six weeks for violating the terms of his federal parole.

Authorities have said they believe Nancy Garrido kept watch over Dugard while her husband was away.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Jaycee-Dugard-case-misconduct-denied-3802000.php#ixzz24BXNk0p3