Former Sacramento District Attorney. Lead Prosecutor for Golden State Killer. Current CEO Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. Supporting Victims Rights.
Joined March 2019
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86 FELONY CONVICTIONS. THREE WOMEN DRUGGED AND RAPED. AND NOW HE’S FREE.
Andrew Luster, the Max Factor heir who drugged and raped unconscious women and videotaped his crimes, was originally sentenced to 124 years in prison. His sentence was later reduced to 50 years.
Now he’s walking free after serving less than half of that sentence.
How did this happen?
Because California classified his crimes as “nonviolent” felonies, allowing him to benefit from expanded prison credits under Proposition 57.
Luster was released based on California’s sentence-credit laws.
After years of failed legislative efforts, California finally changed the law in 2024 to recognize certain drug-facilitated rapes as violent felonies.
But the law came too late for Luster’s victims. It did nothing to change his convictions or prevent his release.
Think about that. A serial rapist convicted of 86 felonies is free, despite a 50-year sentence and repeated opposition to his release.
Tell his victims that justice was served.
California’s laws should recognize the devastating violence inflicted on sexual assault victims—not create opportunities for their attackers to leave prison years before their court-imposed sentences expire.
ktla.com/news/california/out…
A Mother’s Plea for Justice. Stand with victims. Not killers of children.
𝐂𝐉𝐋𝐅 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐬 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 “𝐀 𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞.”
Today, Michael Lyons mother, Sandy Friend, joined the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and Crime Victims United to ask Governor Newsom to meet with and to hear victims’ families before considering blanket commutations of California’s death sentences, including the sentence of the man who brutally murdered her 8-year-old son.
📷 Read her full statement here 📷 tinyurl.com/ymaz2mvy
📷CJLF PRESS RELEASE HERE 📷 tinyurl.com/3neprry4
@CAgovernor @GovPressOffice @CrimeVictimsCa @schubertstrat
🚨 🚨 NBC NEWS EXPOSES A DISTURBING FAILURE IN CALIFORNIA’S JUSTICE SYSTEM.
Serial rapist Andrew Luster drugged and sexually assaulted women. Just last year, even @CAgovernor Newsom’s own Parole Board found he remained too DANGEROUS to release.
Yet he’s now free. Let that sink in.
Governor Brown PROMISED sex offenders would be excluded from Prop 57’s early parole provisions. That promise was broken.
Even today, California classifies rape of an unconscious woman as NONVIOLENT under its violent-felony law. So Prop 57 lets them out early.
As the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) told NBC:
“If you’re looking at it from the perspective of the victim, all rape is violent.”
EXACTLY. Rape is violence. Period.
How can California call this justice? How is this protecting victims?
How does that represent CA values?
👇 Read NBC’s investigation.
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cal…
Schubert Strategies retweeted
This is what eventually happens when you let socialists run government. It's only a matter of time. Portland, OR. is in trouble.
Portland’s Royal Sonesta: bought for $108.3M in 2016. Now reportedly sold for $6.83M for 220 rooms—just $31,000 per key. A staggering 93.7% price collapse.
This is what happens when government fails at public safety, downtown disorder spirals, Measure 110’s consequences go unaddressed, and Multnomah County’s mental-health system fails people in crisis.
Tourism doesn’t thrive where visitors feel unsafe and downtown businesses struggle to survive.
Portland didn’t get here by accident. Policy choices have consequences—and taxpayers, workers, businesses, and property owners are paying the price.
@mitch4portland
@pnwpolicyangel
@TeacherTiff4PDX
@kanalforpdx
@MayorKWilson
Schubert Strategies retweeted
California's Elderly Parole law shocks the conscience. Gavin Newsom and Richard Pan decided child rapists should be allowed to go free once they turn 50. I voted No.
This is not a partisan issue. It's a matter of basic sanity and decency.
🚨 THE COMMITTEE TO REVISE THE PENAL CODE? MORE LIKE THE COMMITTEE TO DISMANTLE IT.
CALIFORNIA — SPEAK UP TOMORROW!
California’s Committee on Revision of the Penal Code is considering a letter urging Governor Newsom to issue a BLANKET COMMUTATION OF EVERY DEATH SENTENCE IN CALIFORNIA.
That’s 563 convicted murderers whose death sentences were imposed by juries and judges.
Their justification? Homicide rates are down.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
What on earth do today’s homicide rates have to do with the horrific murders committed by these killers?
NOTHING.
Tell that to the parents who buried their children. The families of murdered police officers. The loved ones of victims who were raped, tortured, kidnapped and slaughtered.
Lower homicide rates don’t erase their crimes. They don’t erase the verdicts. And they certainly don’t erase the victims.
This committee was created to revise California’s Penal Code — not dismantle justice, disregard juries and silence victims.
📢 TOMORROW, OCTOBER 27, AT 1 PM — MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
The committee will discuss the proposed blanket commutation and take public comment.
📞 Call: 669-444-9171
Webinar ID: 818 7106 1684
Meeting agenda and Zoom link:
clrc.ca.gov/CRPC/Meetings/Ag…
California voters have repeatedly upheld the death penalty. Victims’ families deserve justice, not another bureaucratic assault on finality.
SHARE THIS. CALL IN. SPEAK UP.
VICTIMS’ VOICES MATTER. THEIR LIVES MATTERED.
Meet Laura Arroyo. She was just 9 years old.
On June 19, 1991, Laura was upstairs watching television with her mother when the doorbell rang. She went downstairs to answer it.
She never came back.
Her family searched through the night. The next morning, Laura was found miles from home, still wearing her pink pajamas. She had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, repeatedly stabbed and strangled.
It took 12 years before advances in DNA testing found her killer. A jury sentenced him to death. The California Supreme Court upheld that judgment in 2022.
Laura’s mother told the judge that her daughter’s killer had “destroyed our lives forever.”
Governor Newsom: Before considering blanket commutation, remember Laura. Hear her family. Read what happened to this little girl before setting aside the punishment imposed for her murder.
Laura deserved to grow up. Her family deserves to be heard.
#RememberLauraArroyo #VictimsRights #NoBlanketCommutation
Meet Gabriel Fernandez. He was just 8 years old.
For months, his mother and her boyfriend tortured him. A fractured skull. Twelve broken ribs. Burns. Forced to eat cat feces. Bound and gagged inside a small cabinet.
His mother received life without parole. A jury convicted Isauro Aguirre of murder by torture. He was sentenced to death.
Governor Newsom: Before you consider wiping away that sentence through blanket commutation, look at Gabriel’s face. Confront what his killer did. Hear his family.
Gabriel deserved protection. His life deserves to matter in your decision.
Do not commute his killer’s death sentence.
@CAgovernor @CJLF_Sacramento @CrimeVictimsCa
Schubert Strategies retweeted
A couple of weeks ago, I didn’t think Saritha had much of a chance against Tish James. But the more momentum she gains, the more people realize how much better things could be with her as AG, the more she makes her case—the more convinced I am that this could actually happen.
Saritha can win. There’s hope.
In his daily news releases, Governor Newsom is celebrating California’s declining homicide rate. He actually infers he’s the cause of that decline. Set aside the truth on those declines…
There’s more to the story.
According to California DOJ data:
🔴 Juvenile homicide arrests increased 82% from 2019 to 2024.
🔴 Juvenile felony arrest rates in 2025 remained 60% higher than in 2021.
Declining overall homicides are welcome. But what about juvenile violence, victims, and accountability?
Californians deserve the FULL picture of public safety—not just the statistics the Governor chooses to highlight.
Learn the facts.
juvenilejusticeca.org/
gov.ca.gov/2026/10/22/govern…
Schubert Strategies retweeted
Newsom put out a post today on crime statistics. Stats don’t tell the real story of actual victims, especially child victims.
Don’t ever forget the children we lost. Always remember 🙏🏽
Meet Neal Williams and his two beautiful boys, Devon, 7, and Ian, 3.
Their mother, Manling Williams, put on latex gloves, went to her 3-year-old Ian and smothered him to death. Then she climbed to Devon’s upper bunk and smothered him, too.
After killing her boys, she logged onto social media to check her lover’s profile, then went out with friends. She returned home, selected the heaviest, sharpest sword in the house, and attacked her husband Neal as he slept—stabbing and slashing him more than 90 times with a samurai sword.
The next morning, she called police and claimed she had come home from grocery shopping to find her family dead.
She murdered her family to be with her lover. She was convicted of three first-degree murders and sentenced to death.
@CAgovernor Newsom: Look at their faces. Say their names. Do not commute their killer’s death sentence. Neal, Devon and Ian deserve to be remembered—not buried beneath a blanket act of mercy.@CJLF_Sacramento @CrimeVictimsCa
Meet Neal Williams and his two beautiful boys, Devon, 7, and Ian, 3.
Their mother, Manling Williams, put on latex gloves, went to her 3-year-old Ian and smothered him to death. Then she climbed to Devon’s upper bunk and smothered him, too.
After killing her boys, she logged onto social media to check her lover’s profile, then went out with friends. She returned home, selected the heaviest, sharpest sword in the house, and attacked her husband Neal as he slept—stabbing and slashing him more than 90 times with a samurai sword.
The next morning, she called police and claimed she had come home from grocery shopping to find her family dead.
She murdered her family to be with her lover. She was convicted of three first-degree murders and sentenced to death.
@CAgovernor Newsom: Look at their faces. Say their names. Do not commute their killer’s death sentence. Neal, Devon and Ian deserve to be remembered—not buried beneath a blanket act of mercy.@CJLF_Sacramento @CrimeVictimsCa
Schubert Strategies retweeted
Public safety has never mattered to voters more than it does today, and it can’t be trusted in the hands of someone as irresponsible and reckless as Mai Vang.
During her entire time in Congress, especially since I’ve been Sheriff for the last four years, Congresswoman Matsui has directly supported the Sheriff’s Office and has been a champion for public safety.
Make your vote matter, and join me in supporting Doris Matsui for United States Congress.
youtu.be/FQjzo-l1n50
Schubert Strategies retweeted
𝗩𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗺𝘀’ 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱.
Published today in the Los Angeles Times: CJLF President & CEO Anne Marie Schubert and El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to reject blanket commutation of California’s death sentences and give each case—and each family—the individual consideration they deserve.
We’re proud to see this important perspective reach readers across California and grateful to the Los Angeles Times for publishing it.
📷 Read their op-ed: “Death sentences shouldn’t be overturned lightly.” HERE: latimes.com/.../gavin-newsom…...
#CJLF #VictimsRights #PublicSafety #JusticeForVictims @schubertstrat
@CAgovernor @GavinNewsom
Meet 8-year-old Michael Lyons.
He was kidnapped by serial killer and sexual predator Robert Rhoades. He was horrifically sexually assaulted and tortured to death. His killer earned his death sentence.
Now Governor Newsom is considering commuting California’s death sentences.
What does that mean for Michael’s family — and hundreds of other families who trusted our justice system?
In today’s Los Angeles Times, El Dorado County DA Vern Pierson and I make the case that justice demands more than a governor’s blanket decision to overturn the judgments of juries and courts.
Clemency must be exercised wisely and justly. Every case matters. Every victim matters. Every family deserves to be heard.
Michael Lyons deserved a lifetime. His family deserves justice.
Read our op-ed: latimes.com/opinion/story/20…
🚨 MEET ARTHUR EUGENE LINDSEY.
In 1965, he was convicted of raping and murdering a 21-year-old woman in Indiana.
He was released and came to California where he attacked another woman again.
While on parole, he drugged and repeatedly raped an unconscious woman over two days. Parole officers caught him sexually assaulting her.
Yet California law classified these horrific sexual assaults as “NONVIOLENT” felonies.
That means crimes like his can qualify for Proposition 57’s early parole consideration and expanded prison credits. Thankfully he hasn’t yet been released but could be one day.
A convicted murderer. A repeat sexual predator. And a system that calls drugging and raping an unconscious woman “nonviolent.”
HOW CAN THIS POSSIBLY REPRESENT CALIFORNIA VALUES?
Victims deserve better. California must do better.
California politicians love talking about “California values.”
Andrew Luster drugged women, raped them while unconscious, and videotaped his crimes. Now he’s free after serving less than half his 50-year sentence.
For years, California lawmakers tried to classify these rapes as violent felonies. Those efforts repeatedly failed.
Then Prop 57 gave CDCR sweeping authority to expand prison credits. CDCR now acknowledges in press statements that Luster’s release was due at least in part to Prop 57.
Drugging and raping an unconscious victim IS VIOLENCE.
Where do the women who were raped by him fit into those California values?
🤖 Made with AI
Convicted in Ventura County, rapist Andrew Luster released in LA area vcstar.com/story/news/crime/…
Schubert Strategies retweeted
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐎𝐑’𝐒 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐔𝐏 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒. 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐒?
Governor Newsom, here’s a question: You have taxpayer-funded staff meeting with convicted murderers to discuss commutations and parole hearings. When are you going to send those same taxpayer-funded staff members to sit face-to-face with the families of their victims? The families who buried their loved ones. The families who saw crime-scene and autopsy photos. The families who endured trials, sentencing hearings, and decades of grief. The families who were promised justice. Their voices deserve to be heard, too. Victims’ families deserve that same attention, access and willingness to listen.
Consider Jason Budrow, documented as serving life without parole at Pleasant Valley. He was already a registered sex offender when he strangled 48-year-old Margret Dalton in 2010. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life without parole.
Our earlier post about Andrew Luster—convicted of 86 felonies involving the drugging and sexual assault of unconscious women—underscores why sentencing policies matter.
CJLF believes dangerous sexual offenders should serve their full court-imposed prison terms, and life without parole should mean exactly that. Life without parole.
Where is the commitment to keeping the promise of justice?
Public safety demands accountability. Victims deserve answers.
Governor, when will your administration make time for THEM? Victims deserve a seat at the table—not just the people who killed their loved ones. @CAgovernor
#LWOP #stopearlyrelease #Prop57 #VictimsDeserveJustice #PublicSafetyFirst #AccountabilityMatters #StandWithSurvivors #VictimsRights #JusticeForVictims
Schubert Strategies retweeted
Andrew Lester was originally sentenced to 124 years for drugging and raping women. After his sentence was reduced to 50 years, he was recently released by the California Parole Board after serving just 23 years.
This is not justice. It is not accountability. It is a betrayal of victims and a failure of public safety. Proposition 57 opened the door for offenders like Lester to seek early release, and Californians are now seeing the consequences. Dangerous criminals are being released while victims are left to relive the trauma.
ktla.com/news/california/out…
“THIS IS NOT AN EARLY RELEASE.”
That’s CDCR’s response to serial rapist Andrew Luster walking free after serving roughly 23 years of a 50-year sentence.
Here’s what CDCR isn’t telling the public:
Proposition 57 gave CDCR sweeping authority to write the regulations governing prison credits that reduce time behind bars.
Who sets the credit rules? CDCR.
Who calculates and awards the credits? CDCR.
Who determines when the credited sentence expires? CDCR.
And now CDCR wants to tell the public this wasn’t an early release?
Some might say-sounds like a bunch of unelected bureaucrats handing out credits like Halloween candy.
Call it whatever you want. Andrew Luster is free decades before the end of the 50-year sentence imposed by a judge.
Californians deserve answers. So do the women he drugged and raped.
86 FELONY CONVICTIONS. THREE WOMEN DRUGGED AND RAPED. AND NOW HE’S FREE.
Andrew Luster, the Max Factor heir who drugged and raped unconscious women and videotaped his crimes, was originally sentenced to 124 years in prison. His sentence was later reduced to 50 years.
Now he’s walking free after serving less than half of that sentence.
How did this happen?
Because California classified his crimes as “nonviolent” felonies, allowing him to benefit from expanded prison credits under Proposition 57.
Luster was released based on California’s sentence-credit laws.
After years of failed legislative efforts, California finally changed the law in 2024 to recognize certain drug-facilitated rapes as violent felonies.
But the law came too late for Luster’s victims. It did nothing to change his convictions or prevent his release.
Think about that. A serial rapist convicted of 86 felonies is free, despite a 50-year sentence and repeated opposition to his release.
Tell his victims that justice was served.
California’s laws should recognize the devastating violence inflicted on sexual assault victims—not create opportunities for their attackers to leave prison years before their court-imposed sentences expire.
ktla.com/news/california/out…