A US woman who was kidnapped as a child and repeatedly raped over 18 years is suing the government for neglect, claiming it failed to protect her from the convicted sex offender.
Jaycee Dugard, whose book A Stolen Life became a best-seller in July, said federal authorities had responsibility for Phillip Garrido from the time he was released from jail, three years before he seized her in 1991.
The mother-of-two — her children, fathered by Garrido, were born in the backyard enclosure in which she was held for nearly two decades — will give any compensation she secures to charity, her publicist said.
Dugard was 11 years old when she was kidnapped by Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy while on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California, in June 1991.
She was eventually rescued in August 2009 after parole officers became suspicious. Her lawyers secured a US$20 million compensation deal from California authorities last year. The Garridos were jailed for life in June this year. Garrido had been released from prison in 1988 after being jailed in 1977 over a previous kidnap and rape, and was supposed to be monitored under parole arrangements, her publicist Nancy Seltzer said in a statement.
“The federal government had parole supervision responsibility over [Garrido] from the day he was released in 1988 and remained responsible on the day she was kidnapped in 1991” until 1999, when California took over, it said.
“The State of California did not have parole supervision ... until 1999. It was the state’s negligence in the ensuing 10 years that was actionable and gave rise to Ms Dugard’s claim for damages and the resulting settlement. Thus, the two governmental entities committed separate, distinct and consecutive acts of negligence,” the statement said.
Any money she receives as a result of suing the federal government will be donated to the JAYC Foundation, set up to provide support for families recovering from abduction and the aftermath of traumatic experiences.
“Jaycee Dugard is not seeking money for herself,” Seltzer said.
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