Abducted, held captive for 18 years and raped… but victim CAN’T sue government for failing to supervise kidnapper on parole
Jaycee Dugard was snatched when she was walking home from school aged 11 by convicted sex monster Phillip Garrido
A JUDGE has ruled that a woman who was snatched as a child by a convicted sex offender cannot sue the US federal government after parole officers failed to supervise him properly.
Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped when she was 11 by deviant paedophile Phillip Garrido who kept her hostage in his backyard for 18 torturous years in which she bore two of his children.
The victim has already successfully sued the state of California for $20 million with authorities apologising for not discovering the makeshift prison in the convict’s backyard.
Dugard took action against the federal government who oversaw Garrido's parole in 1988.
However, a federal judge has dismissed the case, which Dugard is now appealing, saying that its agents were not liable for Garrido's sick crimes.
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A three-member panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco decided 2-1 that the government is not at fault for the mistakes of parole officers.
Judge John Owens said: “While our hearts are with Ms. Dugard, the law is not.”
Jaycee became the subject of a worldwide media frenzy in 2009 when she was found alive, after she had been abducted by convicted sex monster Garrido.
She was kidnapped while on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California, and held by Garrido and his partner Nancy, who raped and drugged her repeatedly.
After her escape, Garrido was sentenced to 431 years to life for his crimes, while his wife Nancy was handed 36 years to life.
While held captive, Jaycee gave birth to two daughters who were fathered by her kidnapper after he raped her.
Now 36, Jaycee has opened up about life as a single mother to her kidnapper’s daughters in her second memoir, Freedom: My Book of Firsts.
“I see my daughters have relationships and I feel like one day when the time is right I will meet the right person for me,’ she wrote, which has been published exclusively as an except in People Magazine.
Despite the challenges both daughters face, Jaycee admits that they are doing well — with one in university and another about to start.
“I’m so excited for them and so proud of all the challenges they have overcome,” she writes.
“My daughters are both so important to me, and I am so proud of who they are growing up to be. I’ve done my best to protect them over the years, just like any other mother would do for her kids.
“You might wonder why not more of this book is about them since they are such a big part of my life.
“I have chosen it to be this way for the simple reason that I believe they deserve the right to their own stories. One day if they want to, they can write them their way.”
Admitting that her sense of beauty was impacted by Garrido, Jaycee recalled one night when he dressed her up. Tears streamed down her face during the ordeal.
“I told him I felt ugly,” Dugard writes.
“I remember he looked at me and said, ‘You look beautiful. Here, I will show you. Look into the mirror.
“When a psycho grown-up man that has kidnapped you and taken you away from everything you have known and loved forces you to ‘dress up’ and put on makeup for his personal fantasies... your viewpoint can change.
“I don’t doubt that he thought I was pretty that night,” she continued.
“His creation. The girl he took from the bus stop.
"A girl he controlled and could be anything he wanted… all I saw was a very frightened girl who I didn’t even recognise with mascara running down her cheeks and the saddest face I had ever glimpsed staring back at me.”
Jaycee is yet to go on a date since she was released from her prison — admitting she is still adapting to life in the real world.
“I have never even been on a date before!’ she writes.
“The only boy ever to ask me out was 10, and I was nine."
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