California lawmakers are blasting an “Epstein loophole” that allowed a Kern County politician charged with felony child abuse to dodge jail time by entering a mental-health diversion program.
Zack Scrivner, a former Kern County supervisor, was charged in February 2025 with child abuse and possession of assault weapons — but avoided a child sexual-assault charge accusations he was under the influence of drugs when he climbed into bed with a child and touched the kid “inappropriately.”
Critics of the 2018 diversion program law said it’s being used as a get-out-of-jail free card by serious offenders.
Former Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner avoided jail time after allegedly abusing one of his children. Zack Scrivner/Facebook“I specialize in family and addiction medicine, so I know the value of mental health diversion,” Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains said in a statement to the LA Times.
“It was designed to help people get treatment and rehabilitation in appropriate cases, not to provide an escape hatch to sexually assault children,” Bains added. “This Epstein loophole needs to be closed.”
Scrivner has deep political ties and is the nephew of Kern County District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer, who alerted authorities to his alleged crimes and recused herself from the case.
Among those outraged by the outcome of Scrivner’s case is Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood — who had received a call from the DA on April 23, 2024, saying her nephew was armed and having “some type of psychotic episode” at his home, according to the Times.
Police arrived at Scrivner’s home to find him stabbed in the torso by one of his children after allegedly sexually assaulting his other child, Youngblood said at a news conference.
Scrivner’s four minor children were inside the home, while his wife — who had filed for divorce –was out. Cops later found 30 firearms, psychedelic mushrooms, electronic devices and potential evidence of sexual assault inside the home, according to the LA Times.
California lawmakers are blasting an “Epstein loophole” that allowed Scrivner to dodge jail time by entering a mental-health diversion program.
Yet Scrivner wasn’t immediately arrested — and Youngblood later claimed there was no one available to arraign the supervisor. The case was eventually turned over to Attorney General Rob Bonta after Zimmer’s recusal.
Youngblood has since said the AG’s office botched the case by omitting a sex crime charge.
“I can only speak for the sheriff’s office, and I can tell you that the deputies that investigated that did absolutely the right thing,” Youngblood said in a radio interview, according to the Times. “I believe that the children were all on board and would have done exactly what the court asked them to do, and that is, tell the truth. So from my standpoint, this stinks.”
The case overall has put a spotlight on the effectiveness of mental health diversion programs as a whole.
“People are becoming very skeptical of mental health treatment because it’s being used in ways nobody ever intended,” Matthew Greco, deputy district attorney of San Diego County and author of the California Criminal Mental Health Manual, told the LA Times.
“We know the central premise behind mental health diversion is that if we obtain mental health treatment for those that are mentally ill that are committing crimes, the public will be safer,” he said. “But we need to have both public safety and treatment.”
