David Allen Funston, a 64-year-old convicted child molester sentenced to three life terms for kidnapping and molesting multiple victims, was transferred to law enforcement authorities at approximately 7:30 a.m. after Placer County filed new criminal charges and issued a warrant for his arrest. He had been scheduled to walk free later that week.

Fox News reported that the Placer County District Attorney's Office said it refiled charges against Funston stemming from a 1996 case in Roseville, acting within the state's statute of limitations.

Instead of stepping through the prison gates, Funston was turned over to law enforcement in what amounted to a last-minute intervention that nearly didn't happen at all.

The question isn't why Placer County acted. It's why one county prosecutor had to rescue the rest of the state from its own parole system.

A system that tried to set him free

Funston was convicted in 1999 of kidnapping and child molestation involving multiple victims. He was originally sentenced to three life terms in prison.

Under California's Elderly Parole Program, which makes inmates eligible for parole once they reach age 50 and have served at least 20 consecutive years of incarceration, Funston became a candidate for release.

On September 24, 2025, the Board of Parole Hearings found him suitable for parole. Funston reportedly told the board he was "disgusted and ashamed" of his past behavior and "truly sorry" for the harm he caused.

Gov. Gavin Newsom referred the case back to the Board of Parole Hearings for an en banc review on January 9, 2026. That review took place on February 18, 2026. The board reaffirmed its recommendation that Funston receive parole.

To restate: a man serving three life sentences for kidnapping and molesting children told the parole board he felt bad about it, and the board said that was good enough.

The governor sent it back for a second look. The board looked again and came to the same conclusion. The system worked exactly as it was designed to work, and the result was a child predator walking free.

The victim they stopped listening to

Amelia, one of Funston's victims, voiced outrage after learning the parole board had approved his release. Her words carry the weight that bureaucratic proceedings strip away.

"I'm disgusted with the fact that they would even believe anything that he would happen to say."

"I don't believe that people like that change."

She spoke about what the crimes cost her beyond the immediate trauma, the damage that radiates outward through an entire life.

"I would love to have a child, and this is what this man took from me. And I feel like, personally, that's very hurtful."

"I have trauma. I don't trust anybody. I don't trust anything."

And then the question that should have been asked in every parole hearing, by every board member, before they stamped his file for release:

"I was told that he fantasizes still about children… why would you let this man out? When he gets out, how do you not know if he will continue?"

California's parole system heard from the predator and the victim. It believed the predator.

One county did what the state wouldn't

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper and District Attorney Thien Ho both drew sharp criticism of the impending release, warning that Funston remained a danger to the community and seeking intervention to stop it. Their warnings went unheeded at the state level.

It was Placer County that ultimately acted, refiling charges from the 1996 Roseville case. The former prosecutor who helped put Funston behind bars reacted to the news:

"God bless Placer County DA for charging David Funston for crimes committed by this serial child predator."

That same former prosecutor pointed directly at the structural problem:

"Let's remember that @CAgovernor signed the law allowing this to happen. But Placer DA stepped in to stop this insanity."

It remains unclear when Funston will make his first court appearance in Placer County.

The loophole is the law

California GOP Chair Corrin Rankin framed the arrest not as a victory but as an indictment of the system that made it necessary:

"This last-minute warrant doesn't fix the problem — it exposes it. California Democrats, led by Gavin Newsom, built a parole system that was ready and willing to release a violent child predator back into our community. Newsom signed the laws that created these loopholes, appointed the people who uphold them, and the Democratic majority in the legislature continues to prioritize the well-being of criminals over victims."

She's right that the warrant is a symptom, not a cure. A county prosecutor had to dig up decades-old charges and race the clock to keep a serial child predator behind bars. That is not a functioning justice system. That is a workaround for a broken one.

The Elderly Parole Program sounds reasonable in the abstract. People age. Risk diminishes. Resources are finite. But the program doesn't distinguish between a 50-year-old who committed armed robbery and a 64-year-old who, according to his own victim, still fantasizes about children.

The law treats them identically because the law was written to move bodies out of prisons, not to protect communities from predators.

What happens next time?

Funston's case drew enough public outrage that local law enforcement and prosecutors scrambled to find a legal mechanism to keep him locked up. But how many cases don't generate headlines?

How many parole hearings for violent offenders proceed without a victim willing to go public, without a sheriff raising the alarm, without a county DA willing to refile old charges at the eleventh hour?

The parole board reviewed this case twice and twice concluded that a man convicted on three life sentences for kidnapping and molesting children should go free. The governor's referral back for en banc review amounted to nothing. The system's own safeguards failed on their own terms.

Placer County bought California time. But the laws that nearly put David Allen Funston back on the street remain on the books, waiting to do exactly what they were designed to do.

Amelia's question still stands: when the next one gets out, how do you not know if he will continue?

Nobody in Sacramento has an answer. The parole board already gave theirs.