Nearly eight years after Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped, Phillip Garrido received a certificate from the U.S. Parole Commission lauding him for his behavior since his release from prison in 1988.
"You are hereby discharged from parole," the March 9, 1999, certificate read.
"After a thorough review of your case, the Commission has decided that you are deserving of an early discharge," said the document signed by administrator Raymond E. Essex. "You are commended for having responded positively to supervision and for the personal accomplishment(s) you have made.
"The Commission trusts that you will continue to be a productive citizen and obey the laws of society."
The certificate is among 19 pages of parole commission papers on Garrido released to The Bee under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Authorities allege Garrido kidnapped Dugard, then 11, near her South Lake Tahoe-area home in 1991 and managed to hide her from federal and state parole agents for years afterward.
Under the scenario laid out by law enforcement officials, Garrido had been out on parole for three years when he grabbed Dugard and had held her for eight years when he was released from parole for exemplary behavior.
Garrido was convicted of kidnap and rape in 1977 in Nevada and sentenced to 50 years in federal prison and a concurrent state sentence of five years to life. The newly released federal documents indicate he won release from federal parole after 11 years, even though he committed three drug-related offenses while in federal custody.
The federal parole commission declined to release 92 pages of documents from his file, saying that could "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy of third parties."
It released no information about how often a federal parole agent visited Garrido's Antioch house.
Nor did the commission indicate whether parole authorities ever became aware of a young woman living in his home or backyard.
Redacted from the 19 pages that were released are the reasons he was reinstated to parole after a 1993 drug violation.
At the time he was sentenced, Garrido was expected to be on federal parole until 2027. The documents show that he was paroled from the federal prison at Lompoc on Jan. 20, 1988, "with a total of 14,235 days remaining to be served."
In the certificate of parole, Garrido was judged to have "substantially observed the rules of the institution," although two months earlier federal officials found he had violated prison rules.
"You committed 3 drug-related infractions," a Nov. 20, 1987, report stated.
The parole commission decided in January 1988 that his release "would not jeopardize the public welfare," and he was ordered released with the agreement that he would remain in Nevada until April 10, 2027.
The federal sentence covered Garrido's kidnap conviction, and he was sent from Lompoc to a Nevada state prison to complete his rape sentence of five years to life. Less than a year later, he was released from prison by the Nevada parole board, and despite the federal requirement that he remain in Nevada, he was allowed to return to his home in Antioch.
Authorities allege he kidnapped Dugard in 1991 and kept her hidden in his backyard for 18 years. The federal records give only a bare-bones glimpse of Garrido's supervision during that time, and do not provide any indication of how regularly he was visited by federal parole agents.
However, the records confirm that Garrido was subject to drug testing and that a warrant for his arrest was issued March 18, 1993, after a marijuana violation. He was sent to a federal prison in Dublin for about a month, then ordered released back to Antioch on electronically monitored house arrest until Aug. 31, 1993.
While he was incarcerated at Dublin, authorities allege, Garrido's wife, Nancy, kept watch over Dugard.
After being released from federal parole in 1999, Garrido technically faced lifetime parole under the supervision of Nevada officials. However, Nevada transferred responsibility to California because he was living in Antioch.