Miyares: Former Virginia Parole Board head promoted 'criminal-first, victim-last' agenda

RICHMOND — A "chaotic atmosphere" is how GOP state Attorney General Jason Miyares referred to the Virginia Parole Board under its previous chairperson, a Democrat appointee who Miyares said showed "reckless disregard" for public safety by approving dozens of violent inmates despite board policies and court orders that disallowed them.

“Under Chair Adrianne Bennett, the Virginia Parole Board endangered public safety and abused its power by releasing dozens of violent felons against Parole Board policies, and frequently in clear violation of a court order or Virginia law,”Miyares said in a statement releasing the findings of his office's investigation into the matter “Judge Bennett’s brazen abuse of her power put Virginians’ safety at risk so that she could promote a criminal-first, victim-last agenda without regard for victims or their safety."

The 69-page report released Wednesday afternoon was in accordance with a January 2022 executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin directing the attorney general's office to investigate the release of 134 inmates between March and April 2020, of which only four had been convicted of non-violent offenses. Miyares' office deemed that time as a period "that the pace of parole grants was drastically accelerated."

One of those released was Cordell Reed, who was convicted of second-degree murder in Arizona and sentenced to 25 years in prison, while he was on parole from Virginia. He was extradited to Virginia in 2018 and granted parole here in 2020. A month and a half after his release, Reed was arrested for abducting and injuring a Colonial Heights woman. He was convicted of the wounding charge and sentenced to three years in prison; the abduction and a third charge of damaging a phone line were not prosecuted.

In the report, Miyares said those inmates were not released due to COVID-19 pandemic issues because the Parole Board had not been granted power to issue pandemic-related releases.

"Instead, they were released due to the traceable actions of one person: then Parole Board Chair Adrianne Bennett, Miyares wrote in a summary of his report.

The attorney general claimed Bennett ignored the board's "three strikes" parole-ineligibility statute and approved the releases despite being told not to by then-Gov. Ralph Northam's administration and the General Assembly's rejection of her request to repeal the statute. He said she also failed on numerous occasions to notify victims and their families of the inmates' releases.

Miyares' report made 20 legislative recommendations to the General Assembly to increase Parole Board transparency and "restore confidence and integrity" in Virginia's judicial system. Among them were enhancing ethics for board members, stronger victim-notification requirements and increasing the size of the Parole Board.

In an email to The Progress-Index, Youngkin’s office said Miyares’ investigation revealed how the board under Bennett led to the ”undermining” of the state justice system.

"These soft-on-crime policies endangered Virginia communities and citizens in the past,” Younglin said in the statement. ”I promised to take major steps to hold the Parole Board accountable, and I’m proud of the work the attorney general has done to deliver on those promises. We are restoring law and order to the commonwealth.”

Bennett was named the board chairman in 2017 by then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat. During the period when the 134 inmates were released, she was named a Juvenile and Domestic Relations judge in Virginia Beach. In April 2021, she took an extended leave of absence from the bench when the allegations about the Parole Board during her tenure began circulating.

In a statement emailed to The Progress-Index, Bennett's attorney accused the attorney general of cherry-picking "a time period for scrutiny which happens to have taken place during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic." Diane Toscano claimed in the statement that Bennett was "but one vote of the board" and was "grossly targeted" by Miyares.

"Judge Bennett is a dedicated public servant who has served with distinction on the bench, on the parole board, and as a respected attorney in the Virginia Beach legal community for decades," Toscano said in the statement. "No attempt to vilify her changes that.”

To read the full report, click here. To read a summary of the report, click here.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on Twitter at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Virginia attorney general issues harsh report on Parole Board actions