Following major backlash about the scheduled release of a serial child molester through California’s elderly parole program, the 64-year-old is now facing new charges that could keep him behind bars.
News that David Allen Funston was set to be freed was met by outrage among victims, politicians and others. The former Sacramento County district attorney who prosecuted Funston said she was strongly opposed to his release: “This is one I’m screaming about.”
Funston, granted parole earlier this month, was set to be released on Thursday from state prison — but was rearrested that same day on new charges from a decades-old, untried case. The charges he’s facing are from a 1996 case in which he is accused of sexually assaulting a child in Roseville, according to the Placer County district attorney’s office.
In 1999, he was convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation and had been serving three consecutive sentences of 25 years to life and one sentence of 20 years and eight months at the California Institution for Men in Chino. The sentences followed a string of cases out of Sacramento County in which prosecutors said Funston lured children under the age of 7 with candy and, in at least one case, a Barbie doll to kidnap and sexually assault them, often under the threat of violence.
He was described by a judge at his sentencing hearing as “the monster parents fear the most.”
Prosecutors in Placer County, at the time, decided not to pursue the case against Funston in Roseville given the severity of the sentences he received in Sacramento County.
But given his scheduled release from state prison, prosecutors decided to file new charges against him. Placer County Dist. Atty. Morgan Gire said “changes in state law and recent parole board failures” led to his improper release.
“This individual was previously sentenced to multiple life terms for extremely heinous crimes,” Gire said in a statement. “When changes in the law put our communities at risk, it is our duty to re-evaluate those cases and act accordingly. David Allen Funston committed very real crimes against a Placer County child, and the statute of limitations allows us to hold him accountable for those crimes.”
He is now being held without bail in the Placer County jail, booked on suspicion of lewd and lascivious acts against a child, according to prosecutors. Funston’s attorney, Maya Emig, said she had only recently learned about his arrest and hadn’t yet had time to fully review the matter.
But she noted that she believes “in the justice system and the rule of law.”
Emig called the Board of Parole Hearings’ decision to grant Funston elderly parole “lawful and just.”
California’s elderly parole program generally considers the release of prisoners who are older than 50 and have been incarcerated for at least 20 continuous years, considering whether someone poses an unreasonable risk to public safety.
In Funston’s case, commissioners said they did not believe Funston posed a significant danger because of the extensive self-help, therapy work and sex offender treatment classes he completed, as well as his detailed plan to avoid repeating his crimes, the remorse he expressed and his track record of good behavior in prison, according to a transcript from the Sept. 24 hearing.
At the hearing, Funston called himself a “selfish coward” for victimizing young children, and said he was “disgusted and ashamed of my behavior and have great remorse for the harm I caused my victims, their families in the community of Sacramento.”
“I’m truly sorry,” he said.
But victims of his crimes, as well as prosecutors and elected leaders have questioned the parole decision and called for its reversal.
“He’s one sick individual,” a victim of Funston’s violence told The Times. “What if he gets out and and tries to find his old victims and wants to kill us?”
A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom said the governor also did not agree with Funston’s release and had asked the board to review the case. However, Newsom has no authority to overturn the parole decision.
Some state lawmakers also cited Funston’s case as evidence that California’s elderly parole program needs reform, recently introducing a bill that would exclude people convicted of sexual crimes from being considered by the process.
