(Jaycee Dugard) Kidnap victim files complaint, blasting feds' 'inexcusable' lack of oversight

[alp227]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Jaycee Dugard filed a complaint against the federal government Thursday, seeking compensation for what she called its failures to track the man who held her captive for 18 years.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday morning in the U.S. District Court for Northern California. This comes after the U.S. government "summarily rejected" two requests from Dugard "for private mediation in the case," according to a press release from Nancy Seltzer and Associates, a Los Angeles-based public relations firm that represents the long-time kidnap victim.

The U.S. Justice Department had no immediate comment Thursday, as it had not seen and thus did not know the details of the complaint, said spokesman Charles Miller.

Dugard was 11 years old in 1991, when she was abducted from the street in front of her South Lake Tahoe, California, home. Philip and Nancy Garrido held her and the two daughters she gave birth to in subsequent years in a hidden compound of sheds and tarpaulins until they were found in 2009.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/justice/california-dugard-government-lawsuit/index.html

[teddy51]

1. I think I read today (somewhere) that she is actually suing the Federal Gov't.

for not supervising her captor. Will see if I can locate a link.

[cstanleytech]

2. Is she going to sue the neighbors to?

[Gin]

3. I thought I read she was compensated several millions already

maybe it was the state that paid her...

[AtheistCrusader]

5. The neighbors didn't let that scumbag out on parole.

Didn't fuck up the home inspections. Didn't have any responsibility whatsoever to protect the public from him.

The government did.

However, Gonzales vs. City of Castle Rock and Gonzales vs. City of Bozeman make it unlikely she's going to get anywhere with it. (Different Gonzaleses.)

[caseymoz]

7. Why the federal government, though?

Seems like the state messed this up royally, but I don't think the feds ever had their hands on it.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Not sure.

Might be an over-reach. Was the scumbag on parole for federal felonies, or state? I don't even know.

We'll see what happens when it gets in front of a judge. Standing is the first thing the judge will review, and it'll be tossed quickly if there's no grounds.

[JVS]

12. According to the article he did time at the federal pen in Leavenworth and that the...

federal government oversaw his parole from 1988-1999.

[No Elephants]

16. There you go again, reading the OP article and all.

Good on you.

[No Elephants]

15. Standing would not be the issue. Jaycee was harmed in a specific way, different from the general

public.

If she had no basis for suing the feds, which she probably does, the problem would be n cause of action against the federal government.

[No Elephants]

14. If a suit were filed without a legal basis, the court could fine him AND his client.

[EFerrari]

18. He was out on federal parole when he kidnapped her, per the article. n/t

[No Elephants]

13. No. The neighbors had no legal duty to supervise.

[Gormy Cuss]

20. Why? Most of them couldn't even see the backyard. One of them did report them living in the yard

and the sheriff's deputies failed to confirm it when they made the visit to the house in 2006.

The house is in a small collection of houses in a sparsely settled, mostly industrial area and the Garrido lot layout is such that only one abutter would have had much of a few of the far back of the lot where the sheds and tents were. I don't recall seeing anything in the local media to suggest that the neighbors knew that he was on parole, never mind that it was for a sex offense.

The Federal and later state parole officers, on the other hand, not only knew his offense history but were charged with monitoring him. I've known someone on Federal parole for a nonviolent drug offense and it was extremely intense supervision. What happened in the Garrido case shouldn't ever happen again.

[ingac70]

21. Garrido was on federal probation....

:dunce:

[FirstLight]

4. Good for her!

it was a travesty that they came to check on this guy and never checked the backyard, several times!

I hope she fights the good fight and helps reform some of the ways the parole system works in the long run...

[caseymoz]

6. Yes, even a bigger travesty when . . .

. . . you consider the car matching the description of the one that took her was out in the open in that backyard.

I find it puzzling, though, that she's suing the federal government for this.

[FirstLight]

8. during the time she was kidnapped

he was under the Federal jurisdiction... so it was their lack of concern that made it easy for him to carry out the act and first confine her.

[blueclown]

9. Why do you find it puzzling?

From the article:

Philip Garrido was convicted in the 1970s of kidnapping a 25-year-old woman and keeping her in a storage shed in Reno, Nevada, where he repeatedly raped her. He spent 11 years of his sentence in a Leavenworth, Kansas, federal penitentiary, then went to a halfway house and eventually was allowed to live with his mother at her Antioch, California, home.

The federal government oversaw Philip Garrido's parole from when he got out of custody in 1988 through 1999 -- including the date in 1991 when Dugard was kidnapped -- after which responsibility shifted to California authorities.

The federal government was in charge of parole oversight of Garrido when Dugard was kidnapped.

[caseymoz]

10. Because there was a missing piece to the puzzle. That explains it.

No, I didn't read the article and didn't know he had ever been in federal prison. She has a case, then.

[No Elephants]

17. Why aren't they suing on behalf of her kids, too? That was not exactly a normal childhood.

Maybe they figure separate suits will get more money a piece?

I hope they don't let the time limits go by, though maybe time does not start running for the kids until they turn 18?

[Mimosa]

19. I believe she has a case.

At least the parole officers failed in diligence.

But is it a case which should be against state authorities?

Just read Garrido had been in Federal Custody too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=5003336&mesg_id=5003623

So I guess she does have a case. Poor woman. It should never happen to another. :(