The disgraced Max Factor heir who was convicted of 86 counts of drugging and raping unconscious women in 2003 is set to be released early after his crimes were reclassified as ‘non-violent’ under a 2016 law change masterminded by Kamala Harris, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Andrew Luster, now 60, infamously fled to Mexico during his rape trial – only to be tracked down by Dog the Bounty Hunter and hauled back to the US in chains.
Now one of his victims has bravely come forward in an exclusive interview to talk about her fears at his imminent freedom.
Tonja Balden, 51, who was just 23 when she was drugged and raped by Luster after a night out in Santa Barbara, told DailyMail.com. ‘I’m afraid that when he is released he may continue the same crimes. He just turned 60. That’s not very old.
‘It is so psychopathic to set up this type of thing where you find a woman, drug her, and then she’s an unconscious body and to do all of these things to her while you’re videotaping it. That is a real sadistic way of thinking that I don’t know if that can be fixed.’
Initially handed 124 years in prison, depraved Luster’s sentence was revised down to 50 years in 2013 on appeal.
And now the serial rapist will walk free from Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California, in a few months’ time after being granted parole in August, having served just half his sentence.
Convicted rapist Andrew Luster,60, is now set to walk free after serving just half his 50-year sentence after being granted parole in August, DailyMail.com can reveal
Tonja Balden, 51, who was among the women drugged and raped while unconscious during Luster’s reign of terror, said she’s appalled by the decision to release her attacker early, while speaking to DailyMail.com from her Ventura, California home
Luster is eligible for parole thanks to Proposition 57 – a criminal law amendment written by Harris during her term as California’s Attorney General that gives offenders deemed non-violent automatic parole after serving half their sentence.
Balden is hurt and angry that drugging and raping an unconscious person was ever reclassified as a ‘non-violent’ crime.
She was just 23 when she was drugged and raped by Luster one night in October, 1996 in Santa Barbara, California.
She had no idea of what had happened to her until, four years later, she was shown a horrifying video by police that showed her completely unconscious and being raped and sodomized by Luster on the night they met.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘I was completely confident it wasn’t me until I saw [the tape]. But it was me – I was laying on his bed completely unconscious.
‘I actually looked like a dead body, but I was fully clothed and I was wearing the outfit that I wore, that I was wearing the very first night that I had met him.
‘That’s how I knew when it happened. It happened within hours of meeting him. I cannot tell you how surreal it was to see yourself like that and then to have to watch the entire thing.’
With her voice cracking, she added: ‘I don’t want to go as far as saying that it was like watching yourself be murdered, but there was that feeling of watching yourself totally incapacitated and completely vulnerable.’
Balden is one of three women police were able to identify from Luster’s collection of rape tapes and she was one of the key witnesses at his January 2003 criminal trial which descended into a circus after he went on the lam.
Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor Sr, was convicted of 86 counts of drugging and raping unconscious women in 2003
Luster fled to Mexico after jumping $1million bail and was convicted in absentia, but was eventually captured months later
The 60-year-old heir, pictured in June 2003 after his capture, lured women to his beachfront home in Mussel Shoals, California and raped them after spiking their drinks with gamma hydroxybutyrate – or GHB
While Luster lurked at a hotel in Puerto Vallarta writing a retaliation list that included her name, Balden had to take the stand and endure the humiliation of the video of her rape played in open court.
Although Luster was convicted in absentia, it wasn’t until June 2003 that he was finally captured and handed over to the FBI.
Chillingly, along with his retaliation list, Mexican authorities also found a camera and tripod set up in his room – strongly suggesting he would have continued his crime spree had he not been caught.
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Despite having her life turned upside down by Luster, Balden says she supported his initial sentence of 124 years being reduced to 50 but did so in the belief he would serve the full term which would have resulted in his release at the age of 86.
Now, she says she is appalled that he is being let out after just 21 years and says she doesn’t feel justice has been done in her case.
She said: ‘I had a little compassion for him and I wrote a letter in support of that reduced sentence.
‘At that time, the 50 years was going to be 50 years, but then when Prop 57 passed in 2016, it changed his crimes to non-violent, which means they’re no longer felonies at this point.’
Balden said California State]Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil had told her that carjacking is considered a worse offense in California than what Andrew Luster did.
‘It just makes absolutely no sense at all,’ she said.
At the heart of the matter is Proposition 57 which was written by Harris and intended to reduce the pressure on California’s prison system by mandating the automatic release of non-violent prisoners at the halfway point of their sentence.
It wasn’t until June 2003 that Luster was finally captured by Duane, ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter,’ Chapman, and handed over to the FBI. Chapman is pictured speaking to the press after Luster’s capture
Luster was initially sentenced to 124 years in prison before having it reduced to 50 years on appeal in 2013. He has since been granted parole thanks to Proposition 57
Luster is currently behind bars at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California, where he has served 21 years
But due to what was described at the time as sloppy wording, the definition of non-violent was expanded to include rapists who drug their victims which has now teed up Luster for release.
Although Harris never publicly declared her support for Proposition 57, the issue arose repeatedly during her 2016 Senate run with her opponent Rep. Loretta Sanchez pointing out that the now Vice-President’s definition of ‘non-violent’ crimes included the rape of an unconscious person and human trafficking.
Balden had supported the decision to reduce Luster’s original sentence to 50 years believing he would serve the full term
In a statement released at the time, Sanchez, a Democrat, said: ‘The ballot title and summary, written by Attorney General Kamala Harris, calls serious violent crimes ‘non-violent,’ including crimes such as rape by intoxication of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving a sex act with minors.
‘Proposition 57 is the misleading and dangerous ballot initiative that would allow serious, violent criminals out on early release without completing their sentences.’
The Luster case was also featured in a brochure highlighting the dangers of Proposition 57 but then-Governor Jerry Brown insisted that it would not apply to him because he committed sex crimes.
Despite the warnings, the proposition was passed in November 2016 and Sanchez’s worst fears have now been realized with Luster set to regain his freedom in a matter of months – in spite the assurances of both Harris and Brown.
Balden described Harris’s authorship of Proposition 57 as ‘disappointing’, adding that the Vice-President should have heeded the warnings and been ‘well-aware’ that drugging and raping an unconscious person is a violent crime.
She said: ‘I’m just really taken aback that she was made aware that was being omitted as a violent crime and that she was okay with that.
‘I am hurt actually.’
Luster is eligible for parole thanks to Proposition 57 – a criminal law amendment written by Harris while she was California’s Attorney General that gives offenders deemed non-violent automatic parole after serving half their sentence
Balden has now thrown her weight behind a new state senate bill called SB268 brought by California State Senator Marie Alvarado Gil (pictured) which aims to reclassify the rape of an unconscious person as a violent crime
Luster is now serving out the final months of his sentence and could be out as soon as December.
Although it cannot be applied to the Luster case, Balden has now thrown her weight behind a new California Senate bill called SB268 which was brought by Senator Alvarado-Gil.
Alvarado-Gil, who was elected as a Democrat but crossed the floor to join the Republicans last month, says the new legislation has cross-party support and would, once again, reclassify the rape of an unconscious person as a violent crime attracting stiff penalties and, crucially, remove their right to early release.
The bill is currently awaiting the signature of on the desk of California Governor Gavin Newsom and Balden has a simple message for him: sign it.
‘I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t,’ she told DailyMail.cm.
‘I understand that California doesn’t want to keep people in prison who don’t actually need to be there. Our prisons are overrun, and I get it, but if they’re truly violent, criminals should stay in.
‘People who go out of their way to drug somebody to the point of unconsciousness and rape them, that, in my opinion, is more violent in some ways than traditional rape
‘All rape is violent but to torture then have sex with and sodomize an unconscious body is really sick. And I hope that Gavin Newsom will agree and sign this.’
Tearfully Balden added: ‘I’m so grateful for [Alvarado-Gil] and so proud of her hard work, and it’s been a privilege to work with her on it.
‘If this gets passed, I just feel like I’m going to cry. It’ll make me feel like I did something good out of all of this.’