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Gavin Newsom commutes sentence of gang thug who shot girl, 16; now he works for the government

November 24, 2023 | | Print Article

A convicted thug who paralyzed a girl for life is free and, worse, working in government, thanks in part to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The thug, now 28-year-old former gang member Jarad Nava, was sentenced to 162 years in prison back in 2014 for opening fire on a car full of teenagers two years earlier.

On the night of Sept. 29th, 2012, when Nava was 17, the white truck he was in pulled up alongside a Lexus sedan that he believed was full of his gang’s enemies but was, in fact, full of teenagers merely related to his gang’s enemies.

“In the car were Yesenia Castro, 16; her sister Marlene Castro, 15; Jessila Suarez, 25; and Marlyn Reyes, who was 17 and nine months pregnant,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

After telling the four that they were “gonna die today,” Nava opened fire, reportedly firing multiple rounds into the car full of teenagers.

“Suarez threw herself over Reyes to protect the baby. A bullet grazed Marlene’s left leg. Yesenia was shot in the back. As they raced toward the hospital, Yesenia wasn’t breathing. ‘Her eyes were rolling back’ and she was bleeding, Reyes testified,” the Times notes.

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“Marlene had thrown her shirt over her sister to soak up the blood. The bullet severed her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the waist down. With Yesenia still in intensive care, the Castro sisters picked Nava out of a six-pack of photos detectives showed them,” according to the Times.

Two years later he was sentenced to 162 years in prison for several attempted murder charges, and that was that … until a group of bleeding-heart leftists encouraged by filmmaker Scott Budnick decided to interfere.

“While in juvenile hall, Nava had met Budnick — a producer of the ‘Hangover’ films and founder of the nonprofit Anti-Recidivism Coalition — who was teaching a creative writing class,” the Times notes.

Budnick was evidently impressed with Nava.

“He was dynamic, personable, challenging, a handful, just like a little bit of a wild kid. But you know when you see that spark, and you know when someone is remorseful, and you know when they have some of those core qualities that can make them very successful? I saw all of that in him,” he recalled to the Times.

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He was so impressed that he produced a documentary about Nava — one that was later viewed by Christopher Hawthorne, the director of the Juvenile Innocence and Fair Sentencing Clinic:

When Hawthorne then went to see Nava, he too was impressed.

“I was confident that when I met Jarad, he would be different. And he really was. He was well-spoken, thoughtful. He understood what he had done,” he told the Times.

“Hawthorne and others at the clinic put together a clemency application that demonstrated Nava’s rehabilitative work in prison. They gathered support letters and cited legal cases on juvenile brain development,” according to the Times.

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“At the end of 2018, the clinic shipped Nava’s application off to then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Nava went through an initial interview, the start of the process toward a Board of Parole Hearings session. And then he waited,” the Times notes.

Two years later, the state’s next governor, Newsom, took action by commuting Nava’s sentence to just a measly 10 years behind bars — far short of the 50 years that Yesenia, the paralyzed victim, had hoped for.

Six months later, Nava reportedly went before the California Board of Parole Hearings and argued his case.

“I felt at that time that I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have nobody to, uh — I, I didn’t feel like I had any family,” he told the board, describing his mindset during the 2012 shooting.

“If released, he said, his plan was to enroll at Sacramento State to study computer coding. But backup options were getting into electrical work, applying to Caltrans or an Amazon warehouse, or if all else failed, making hamburgers at Carl’s Jr. because the restaurant chain hires those with felony records,” the Times notes.

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He also apologized to all his victims and their families, saying, “I feel deeply ashamed about what I did.”

The board ultimately voted to approve his parole. Newsom subsequently upheld the decision, allowing Nava to walk free on Dec. 22nd, 2020.

Afterward, Budnick introduced him to Erika Contreras, the secretary of the state Senate, who in turn hooked him up with an internship at the Capitol. Nava later transferred to the Senate Transportation Committee and eventually wound up with a “coveted job” with the Senate Public Safety Committee.

Worst of all, he’s now working with the Legislature on “how to modify the criminal justice system in California to focus on rehabilitation in lieu of lengthy prison terms,” the Times notes.

In other words, he’s now working to free other criminals …

Critics are not pleased:

Vivek Saxena
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