Health and Safety? Dozens of Sex Offenders Have Been Released From Prison Due to COVID-19

Brittany M. Hughes | May 5, 2020
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In California, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said he was "outraged" after the state ordered the release of seven “high-risk” sex offenders from his county’s jails, all of whom have multiple convictions for “lewd offenses.” 

One of those inmates released is Rudy William Grajeda Magdaleno, 39, who has a criminal history that includes child molestation, indecent exposure, assault and battery, among other violent crimes. Magdaleno, who has also been convicted of violating his parole five times, was arrested again just one day after his release for failing to charge his GPS monitor.

Another is 40-year-old convicted child molester Kyle Albert Winton. Jose Adrian Oregel, 46, had been found guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and “great bodily injury.” Two others had been convicted of sexual battery, among other things. 

"These kinds of high-risk sex offenders are the most dangerous kind of criminal and the most likely to re-offend," Spitzer wrote in a statement. "They are doing everything they can to avoid detection by the parole officers assigned to monitor them so they can potentially commit additional sex offenses. These are not the kind of people who should be getting a break."

Of the nearly 4,000 inmates Illinois has released thus far during the COVID-19 pandemic, 146 were sex offenders, including three who were considered “sexually dangerous persons,” defined by the state as “ suffering from a mental disorder, which mental disorder has existed for a period of not less than one year, immediately prior to the filing of the petition hereinafter provided for, coupled with criminal propensities to the commission of sex offenses, and who have demonstrated propensities toward acts of sexual assault or acts of sexual molestation of children, are hereby declared sexually dangerous persons.”

Another 64 had been convicted of murder.

In Washington State, Gov. Jay Inslee ordered the release of certain criminals, including two sex offenders and multiple gang members, citing COVID-19 concerns.

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