Repeat offender's latest spree shows flaws in California criminal justice reform, Bianco says

Riverside County law-enforcement leaders railed against California's decade-old sentencing law Wednesday, saying the recent case of a serial burglar shows how people who should be in state prison are instead handed off to local jails too crowded to hold them.

It's the latest such criticism from Sheriff Chad Bianco and District Attorney Mike Hestrin, who have frequently denounced state criminal-justice laws as too lenient.

During a press conference at the district attorney's office in Riverside, Hestrin and Bianco were joined by Riverside City Police Chief Larry Gonzalez and the district attorney from Tulare County, Tim Ward, to discuss the case of Timothy Bethell, who has committed crimes in both counties.

"This case is sadly indicative of life in California in 2023,” Ward said. “It epitomizes the dysfunction caused by the passage of soft-on-crime policies coming out of Sacramento."

Bethell, 31, was sentenced to more than five years in state prison late last month after pleading guilty to 17 felony counts, including theft, burglary and vandalism, for a series of crimes against nine businesses in Visalia, a town in Ward's Central Valley county. The crimes spanned the months of December 2022 and January, during which he stole cash and electronics and damaged properties.

The Riverside County officials called the press conference to connect Bethell's crimes in Tulare with a pattern of similar misconduct in Fresno and Riverside counties.

Bethell, of Winchester, was first convicted of a felony drug offense in Fresno County in 2014, according to a press release from the Tulare DA's office. He then pleaded guilty to 14 felonies after vandalizing and stealing from seven Visalia businesses in 2021. He was released to a recovery program, but failed to report.

Soon after, he was charged with another burglary and resentenced to a year in jail and a year in mandatory supervision in his home county of Riverside.

Bethell then pleaded guilty to six more felonies after vandalizing and stealing from five businesses in Riverside County. He was sentenced to three years, but instead of going to prison was sent to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which released him to prevent jail overcrowding. That's often referred to as a "fed kick" because of a federal court order requiring jails to avoid overcrowding that can lead to unsafe and even deadly conditions.

After being released, Bethell returned to Tulare and committed the crimes he pleaded guilty to last month.

"The two counties are not experiencing a two-county issue, it's a statewide issue," Bianco said, later putting the blame squarely on "the complete failure of your governor and the vast majority of your legislators."

Bianco has had a troubled history with the state's sentence reform laws, including AB 109, which was enacted a decade ago to help alleviate prison overcrowding by having some people serve shorter sentences in county jails instead of the state's facilities.

Riverside County's fed kick numbers have surged in recent years, even as the county opened its newly built John Benoit Detention Center in Indio.

An investigation by The Desert Sun in 2020 found that Bianco's department had released several people who were charged with crimes that had potential life sentences under California's third strike rules. Bianco appeared in court after a judge questioned why one third strike defendant was selected for release over others that may have had lesser charges and why electronic monitoring wasn't utilized when he was freed. Bianco said his department's jails were overcrowded and that he did not have the ability to ensure all those he was releasing would not reoffend.

Bianco made similar comments during Wednesday's press conference: "I have to release somebody," and adding Bethell was "the lowest-level offender on this particular day."

The department had not released detailed information about how it manages its fed kick program to The Desert Sun during previous reporting, and did not respond to the newspaper's request after Wednesday's press conference.

Gonzalez, the Riverside police chief, added that crimes targeting businesses in the city have surged, saying people accused of stealing or other crimes face little to no consequences for their actions.

"I'm not here to advocate for turning back the clock completely," Gonzalez said. "... We don’t want more punishment; we want more safety."

Ward, the Tulare district attorney, said the state's reform laws amount to a "social experiment" that has failed.

"When repeat criminals come through the justice system, it’s naïve and foolish to continue to put the public at risk hoping somehow that this is going work," Ward said. "We are living in a world where consequences for bad, evil and dangerous behavior keeps getting reduced."

Hestrin went as far as to invite Gov. Gavin Newsom to Riverside County to discuss local problems with crime and to "how to fix this problem."

"We need the legislature to pass laws so we can hold individual offenders accountable," Hestrin said. "At some point there has to be consequences."

Christopher Damien covers public safety and the criminal justice system. He can be reached at christopher.damien@desertsun.com or follow him at @chris_a_damien.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: California criminal justice reform has failed, Hestrin and Bianco say