California Gov. Gavin Newsom has pardoned former sex-trafficking victim Sara Kruzan, who was sentenced to life in prison as a teenager for killing her pimp after years of abuse.
For the 44-year-old Kruzan, it is the final step in an official redemption that has spanned more than a decade and three governors of both political parties.
Kruzan was tried as an adult after she shot and killed George Gilbert Howard in a Riverside motel room during a botched robbery.
After shooting Howard in the neck from close range, Kruzan took off with cash from his wallet and the keys to his Jaguar.
She was 17 when she was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison for the 1994 murder of the man who she said had sexually abused her and trafficked her for sex starting when she was 13 years old.
She served 18 years in prison until Newsom’s predecessor, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, allowed her release in 2013.
Brown’s predecessor, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, had already commuted her sentence to 25 years to life with the possibility of parole just before he left office in early 2011.
At age 17, Kruzan was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for shooting and killing George Gilbert Howard in 1994. Facebook/Sara Kruzan
Kruzan was released from prison in 2013 after serving 18 years. APBy then, Kruzan had become something of a cause célèbre for state lawmakers and reform groups seeking to soften harsh life sentences for those who committed their crimes as juveniles.
Leland Yee, a Democratic state senator who himself later went to prison for corruption, at the time called her case a “perfect example of adults who failed her, of society failing her.”
“You had a predator who stalked her, raped her, forced her into prostitution, and there was no one around,” Yee said.
Newsom, a Democrat, said in his pardon on Friday that Kruzan has since shown that she “is living an upright life.”
In granting her a pardon, Gov. Gavin Newsom praised Kruzan for living “an upright life” following her release from prison nearly a decade ago. AP
Sara Kruzan, 44, was granted a pardon by California Gov. Gavin Newsom after serving 18 years in prison for killing her sex trafficker. Sara KruzanSince the slaying, he said, she “has transformed her life and dedicated herself to community service.” The pardon, Newsom said, does not minimize her crime or the damage it caused, but “it does recognize the work she has done since to transform herself.”
Since taking office in January 2019, Newsom has granted a total of 129 pardons, 123 commutations and 35 reprieves.
With Post wires
