Freedom for Sara Kruzan may come in a matter of weeks.
A Riverside County judge met behind closed doors with prosecutors and Kruzan’s attorneys over a tentative settlement that will decide the future of a woman who was sentenced to life in prison for killing her pimp when she was 16.
Prosecutors and lawyers did not reveal details of the tentative settlement following the private meeting with the judge. But they did say it would not involve a new trial.
Lawyers for the 34-year-old Kruzan have spent years lobbying for a new trial or early release from prison. Kruzan, who spent part of her childhood in San Diego, was convicted in 1995 of first degree murder after she shot and killed her pimp.
In calling for clemency or a new trial, Kruzan’s attorneys argued her defense lawyers never introduced evidence that she had been abused as a child and forced into prostitution.
Authorities temporarily removed Kruzan as a child from her mother’s home because of emotional abuse. She met her pimp when she was 11. She says he molested her soon afterward, raped her at 13 and pushed her into prostitution.
Kruzan’s lawyers say the pimp’s mother has said she doesn’t blame Kruzan for killing her son.
