In a move condemned by a terrified rape victim and the Riverside County district attorney, the state has recommended parole for a sex offender with more than 140 years remaining on his prison sentence because of a program allowing the early release of older inmates.
Cody Woodson Klemp, 67, of Moreno Valley was granted parole earlier this month by the state parole board under California’s Elderly Parole Program, which makes prisoners 50 or older eligible for parole hearings if they have served 20 continuous years of their sentence. The parole board determines whether an inmate is suitable for release based on age, time served, and whether diminished physical condition has reduced their risk of violence.
Prior to 2021, the Elderly Parole Program, enacted in 2018, allowed for a parole review for inmates 60 years or older who had served a minimum of 25 years of continuous incarceration.
Klemp’s victim and Riverside County prosecutors were alarmed that Klemp was granted parole, and said they will appeal the decision and send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom requesting a hearing to reconsider his release.
“This is a devastating blow to victims, and our office will continue to fight on their behalf,” Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said in a statement Friday. “Although this practice of early release is far from unusual these days, considering the inmate’s particularly violent criminal history, and admissions to the parole board itself, it is shocking that such a release would be considered.”
Klemp has served 29 years of his 170-year sentence at the California Institution for Men in Chino.
Permanent scars
Klemp repeatedly raped his 14-year-old niece in his Moreno Valley home throughout 1990, leaving his victim with permanent physical and psychological scars.
“It was because of him that I learned to cut. It was because of him that I hated me,” Klemp’s victim, now 48, said during his Nov. 8 parole hearing. “It was because of him that the only prayer I had was a prayer to not wake up. I always believed that somehow I did something to deserve it.”
The woman, who is not being identified because she is the victim of sexual assault, said Klemp ruined her sense of self and sense of safety for so long she felt unfixable.
“Unlike Cody, for me, for his victims, there is no parole board,” she said. “We don’t get to ask or request release from our mental prisons.”
Convicted in 1994
A jury convicted Klemp in June 1994 of 40 felony counts, including 20 counts of lewd acts on a child age 14, 10 counts oral copulation by force or violence on a child age 14, and 10 counts of unlawful intercourse/forcible rape, court records show.
At the time, Klemp already was a convicted rapist, having been found guilty of rape in 1976 and attempted rape in 1981. The latter assault landed Klemp in Patton State Hospital for three years as a mentally disordered sex offender. Klemp’s 1976 and 1981 crimes occurred in Long Beach, said Brooke Beare, a spokesperson for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Gordon Burkhart took Klemp’s prior convictions into account when he sentenced Klemp to 170 years in prison in 1994. At the time of the sentencing, probation officer Kathy Diaz, who recommended the maximum sentence, noted that Klemp threatened to kill the victim for reporting the molestations.
Terrified about release
During the Nov. 8 parole suitability hearing, a commissioner, according to the victim and her husband, asked Klemp if he did, in fact, threaten to kill the victim prior to his 1994 conviction, and Klemp said he did.
Transcripts of the hearing were not yet available on Friday.
In a telephone interview with the Southern California News Group, the victim said: “I’m terrified he’s going to kill me. He’s a lifetime criminal. He’ll do it. He’s dangerous. I have been a mess. I’ve had nightmares all night long. It’s just this impending doom. It’s like being raped over and over again.”
She is hoping Klemp never gets that chance, and that the parole board will reconsider its decision.
It is why she decided to go public with her story.
“I want this in every newspaper,” she said. “If I die, I’m going to die fighting.”
Civil litigation
Following Klemp’s conviction, his victim sued child welfare agencies in Riverside and Los Angeles counties, alleging they either placed her in her uncle’s care without checking his criminal history, or were aware of it and placed the victim in Klemp’s care anyway.
An assistant director of Riverside County’s Department of Public Social Services told The Press Enterprise at the time that it was standard procedure to check a prospective guardian’s criminal background, conduct an interview and visit his or her residence prior to placement.
An administrator for the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services also said at the time that it followed similar procedures for background checks, but only since 1991. Prior to that time, prospective guardians were simply asked if they had criminal backgrounds.
Riverside County fought the lawsuit and the case went to trial, and Klemp’s victim said she lost on a technicality. Los Angeles County, however, settled the case for $50,000, she said.
Born into family dysfunction
Born to a developmentally disabled mother who bore at least a dozen other children, all of whom were adopted out to foster homes or families, Klemp’s victim tells a story of a life marked by family dysfunction and terror, and moving in and out of the child welfare system.
At age 3, she said, another uncle beat her mother’s toddler son to death in front of her. After that, she wound up in the foster care system for the next five years before she eventually was placed in the custody of her father and aunt in Long Beach, which wasn’t much of a step up.
She described her father as an inattentive philanderer who had neither the parenting skills nor the selflessness to raise her. “My dad said he didn’t want me anymore,” she said.
From age 8 to the time she was placed in Klemp’s care in 1990, the victim describes her life as whirlwind, living in an and out of the child welfare system. At one point, she said, she wound up in McLaren Hall, a children’s home in El Monte for wards of the court.
After moving from Perris to Moreno Valley, Klemp and his wife agreed to take her in, according to the victim. She was placed in their care by the social services system, and the sexual abuse began not long thereafter, she said.
Game of tickle
It started with a game of tickle and escalated to repeated rape as well as psychological abuse.
When the victim threatened to kill herself, Klemp gave her a gun and told her to do it.
“He would come in my room and kick my mattress to wake me and say, ‘Wake up whore — disgusting slut!’ ” she said.
Finally, she ran away at age 14 and was sent to a group home. She eventually reported the abuse to a counselor, who then reported it to police.
“The only reason the abuse stopped was because I had the guts to run away,” said the victim. “I had no money, I had nowhere to go, and yet anything that I faced in the streets would have been better than what I was facing at home.
Anxious and hopeful
On Friday, Nov. 17, she said she couldn’t help but feeling anxious.
“Every moment of our day is consumed with this fight. I am eating, sleeping, dreaming about what happened, what is happening, and what’s to come,” she said. “I am afraid. My life has quite literally been flipped upside down.”
And while she shudders at the threat of possible violence against her should Klemp be released from custody, the victim was more concerned about other women and children.
“I am very scared. But I can only die once. The victims that he goes on to perpetrate against will die many many more times,” she said.
Yet she remains hopeful.
“I believe in people. I believe people will stand up and fight against this,” she said.
The District Attorney’s Office said in a news release Friday that anyone opposed to Klemp’s release and/or the Elderly Parole Program’s minimum eligibility requirements may contact Gov. Gavin Newsom at 1021 O Street, Suite 9000, Sacramento, CA 95814 or by calling (916) 445-2841.