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OC District Attorney, crime victims ask legislators to block early release for violent criminals

April 30, 2025

By PAUL ANDERSON

SANTA ANA — Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and crime victims Tuesday held a rally calling on state lawmakers to tighten up loopholes they say will allow for violent criminals to earn early release from prison.

The theme of the office’s annual crime victims rally was “re-victimization,” as victims and their loved ones worry that convicts they thought would never get out could still get a pass.

Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Doug Chaffee told those gathered outside the offices for prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies that the county will “stand up for victims every step of the way … even as laws change and challenges arise.”

Irvine Police Chief Michael Kent decried “flaws in our system” regarding “current parole and re-sentencing laws.”

He said victims were experiencing “the painful reality of re-victimization. The justice you thought was served is being reconsidered.”

State legislators have changed murder laws, eliminating a theory of liability for anyone associated with a killing being eligible for murder convictions no matter their level of involvement. Now prosecutors must show a more direct involvement in carrying out a murder.

Since lawmakers made the change retroactive, many convicts have petitioned for reconsideration and have been able to gain freedom.

“It’s a re-opening of wounds you worked so hard to heal,” Kent said. “You should never have to fight for the justice you already earned.”

Jacki Chalabian Jernigan, whose sister Dr. Jeanine Rose Chalabian was killed Oct. 10, 1997 by her estranged husband, Hratch Baliozian, detailed how she lost her struggle to keep the defendant behind bars. She noted that when he was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison in 1999 the judge said the defendant’s last breath should be taken behind bars.

Baliozian reached out to his children during the COVID-19 pandemic for help getting out of prison. She said he was denied parole in recent years because he did not complete some courses and had not shown any remorse. But instead of waiting another three years for a parole hearing, he was allowed to try again in a year and a half because he took the courses and was released, she said.

Jernigan appealed for a full parole board to reconsider in September, but the decision was not overturned, she said. She was also unable to get a restraining order against him.

“I still do not know where he is,” she said. “With the internet he can find all of our addresses but we can’t know his. It’s terrible. This is wrong.”

” … Pre-meditated murder is just that,” Jernigan continued. “This level of evil should never be released … I pray this broken system can be improved.”

Susan Montemayor Gutierrez, whose husband David Montemayor was kidnapped and killed in a plot conceived by his sister in Buena Park on Oct. 2, 2002, bemoaned how one of the victim’s convicted killers has been released and his sister is appealing to have her sentence reconsidered under the new state law.

Three of Montemayor’s killers have been condemned to death and two were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Gerardo Lopez’s case was sent to juvenile court and he was eventually released at the border and allowed to “self-deport,” she said.

Deborah Perna, 68, is appealing to have her conviction reconsidered.

“David’s sister solicited the murder,” she said. “She had full understanding of what she was doing.”

Montemayor Gutierrez said a hearing will be held in Orange County in the next couple of months.

“She will be trying to downplay her role in the murder,” she said. “I don’t think she will ever … accept responsibility for her role in the murder.”

She said she was hopeful the petition will be denied, but added that might be “naive.”

The mother of an 8-year-old boy sexually assaulted by Matthew Zakrzewski, 36, who was sentenced in November 2023 to 707 years to life in prison for molesting 16 boys and exposing a 17th to child pornography, criticized a loophole in the law that allows for the early release of some inmates who reach the age of 50 and have served more than 20 years in prison.

Zakrzewski was eligible for parole in May 2039, according to the state Department of Corrections. If he is granted parole, it is likely prosecutors would seek to have him committed to a state mental health hospital as a sexually violent predator.

Spitzer praised the boy’s mother, who appealed along with prosecutor Robert Mestman, for lawmakers to close the loophole. Spitzer was impressed the proposal got out of a public safety committee. The county’s top prosecutor said he was “quite frankly blown away” by the testimonials from crime victims Tuesday.

Spitzer said he was encouraged by the passage of Prop. 36, which allows for increased punishment for recidivist drug and theft convicts.

“It’s up to us,” he said. “We have the power, the ability, the momentum.”

Orange County Register

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OC District Attorney, crime victims ask legislators to block early release for violent criminals

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