From September 2014 to August 2015, 22 people in San Diego County were charged under provisions of Chelsea's Law, including a former teacher who received a lengthy prison term for molesting four boys, according to an annual report set to be delivered Thursday.
Chelsea's Law mandates life prison terms for those convicted of certain violent sex crimes against children, increases law enforcement oversight of paroled sex offenders and prohibits released sex offenders from visiting places where children congregate. The 2010 law was named for 17-year-old Chelsea King, a Poway High School senior who was raped and killed by convicted sex offender John Albert Gardner III during a jog six years ago.
Gardner, who was convicted in 2000 of sexually molesting a 13-old neighbor, also killed 14-year-old Amber Dubois of Escondido in 2009.
"The outcome of successful prosecutions using Chelsea's Law is the reduction in vulnerability of our communities' children to sexual predators by removing such criminals from society for either longer periods of time or permanently,'' according to the 2015 Chelsea's Law impact report.
Chelsea's Law was championed by the King family in collaboration with then Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher who authored the law.
"We made a commitment that if this law passed, we would see it through, we would monitor its implementation, we would make sure that it was properly enforced and we would continue year after year after year to make sure that the promise we made when the bill was signed was a promise that was fulfilled in actually protecting our children," he said in a press conference.
Each year, the Chelsea's Light Foundation prepares an annual report detailing the number and nature of sex crimes against children being prosecuted in various counties under provisions of Chelsea's Law.
Among those prosecuted locally was John Raymond Kinloch, a former Chula Vista first-grade teacher who molested a former student and seduced three other boys he met on the Internet. He was convicted in July on 33 counts, including child molestation and possession of child pornography and was subsequently sentenced to 125 years to life in prison.
Others prosecuted under Chelsea's law were not named in the report, but its authors listed the charges against them. They include sex offences involving bodily harm to a child under 14 years of age, rape of a minor under age 14 and lewd or lascivious acts involving children, according to the Chelsea's Law impact report.
