Andrew Luster, the Max Factor heir once locked up for 124 years for drugging and raping three women, is free after about 20 years, and Glendora leaders say California failed victims and residents.
Convicted serial rapist Andrew Luster is out of California state prison and reportedly living in Glendora after serving roughly two decades of a sentence that once stretched more than a century. Local officials say the release leaves families, survivors, and a quiet suburban city carrying risks they never voted for.
Fox News Digital reported that Luster, great-grandson of cosmetics mogul Max Factor, was convicted in 2003 on 86 felony counts tied to the drugging and sexual assault of three women at his beachfront home in Ventura County. Prosecutors said he used GHB. A court originally sentenced him to 124 years. He is now free after about 20 years and is said to be residing in Glendora.
Glendora Mayor David Fredendall did not mince words.
"The City of Glendora is beyond disappointed. We are outraged."
Fredendall said the city is demanding more information from state officials about how the release happened and what protections, if any, sit between Luster and the public. He flagged the obvious worry for any mayor: a man with that record living near schools, parks, playgrounds, and ordinary community spaces.
Luster’s path through the courts was already a spectacle long before this release. During his 2003 Ventura County trial, he fled to Mexico while free on $1 million bail. The court convicted him in his absence. Celebrity bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman later captured him in Puerto Vallarta. On June 19, 2003, authorities brought him back through Los Angeles International Airport to begin a 124-year prison term.
That original term did not hold. In March 2013, a California judge set aside the 124-year sentence after finding the trial court had failed to adequately explain why consecutive sentences were stacked the way they were. Ventura County Superior Court Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz rejected Luster’s bid to wipe out the convictions themselves, but she ordered a new sentencing hearing. In April 2013, she resentenced him to 50 years. The Associated Press covered that resentencing. Ventura County prosecutors had opposed any soft landing, calling the crimes cruel, vicious, and callous.
Even after that reduction, the public had reason to expect a long stay behind bars. Reporting cited by Fox News Digital, including earlier KTLA coverage, said Luster was denied parole in 2022, granted parole in 2024, then watched Ventura County prosecutors successfully challenge that grant. He was denied parole again in April 2025. Prior to the latest outcome, coverage had pointed to a calculated prison term running into October 2026.
Then he walked free earlier this month anyway.
Fredendall tied the anger in Glendora to a larger California pattern. In 2016, voters approved Proposition 57, which expanded parole consideration for certain offenders. The mayor said voters were told dangerous people would still stay locked up.
"When California voters approved Proposition 57 in 2016, they were assured by Governor Jerry Brown and his administration that dangerous offenders would remain behind bars."
State officials can reach for paperwork. They can talk about sentencing credits, legal calculations, and administrative rules. Fredendall said none of that answers the real question facing his city.
"The State may argue that this was not technically an early release. It can point to sentencing credits, legal calculations, and administrative requirements. However, those technical explanations do not address the larger concern: how an individual originally sentenced to 124 years in prison for heinous crimes is able to walk out of a secured facility after only 20 years."
That is the heart of the dispute. A jury’s verdict and a judge’s long sentence told victims the system would keep a serial sexual predator away for a lifetime measured in decades. Credit formulas and parole machinery told California something else. Local government gets the bill either way.
Fredendall said Glendora police will work with state parole authorities to enforce every lawful condition of supervision. He also drew a hard line about responsibility.
"Our Police Department will work with State parole authorities to ensure every applicable law and condition of supervision is followed. We will do everything within our lawful authority to protect our residents. But local governments should not be forced to shoulder the public-safety consequences of decisions made in Sacramento without adequate transparency and accountability."
He closed with the people the process is supposed to serve.
"The victims deserve better. The people of Glendora deserve better. California must do better."
California Assemblywoman Blanca E. Rubio, who represents the state’s 48th Assembly District, issued her own condemnation. She said she is working with local officials and law enforcement to learn the circumstances of the release and the supervision conditions now in force.
"I am outraged and deeply disturbed by the decision to grant parole to convicted serial rapist Andrew Luster. It is incomprehensible that an individual originally sentenced to 124 years in prison for such horrific crimes could be granted parole after serving approximately 20 years."
Rubio framed the stakes in plain terms: a justice system that is supposed to protect the innocent, hold violent criminals accountable, and give survivors a measure of justice. Releases like this, she said, shred public confidence and send a crushing signal to people who already lived through sexual assault.
"Our justice system is supposed to protect the innocent, hold violent criminals accountable, and provide victims with a sense of justice. Decisions like this undermine public confidence in that system and send a devastating message to survivors of sexual assault."
Fox News Digital contacted the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for confirmation of Luster’s release date, the sentencing math behind it, and details of parole supervision. The report did not include a CDCR response. Exact street-level residence details beyond the Glendora report were not laid out. The precise credit calculation that turned a 50-year resentence, and an expected hold into 2026, into freedom after about 20 years also was not spelled out in the available record.
Even with those gaps, the documented timeline is blunt. Three women. Eighty-six felony counts. A flight to Mexico on high bail. A conviction entered while he was gone. A capture in Puerto Vallarta. A 124-year sentence. A 2013 do-over that cut the term to 50 years. Parole fights through 2022, 2024, and April 2025. An expected end date of October 2026 in prior coverage. A release “earlier this month.” A reported new home in Glendora.
Prosecutors who tried the case warned long ago about the nature of the crimes. Local leaders now warn about the nature of the aftermath. A city that did not try the case, did not write Proposition 57, and did not run the parole board is left to monitor a convicted serial rapist and reassure parents whose kids use the same parks and sidewalks.
California’s political class has spent years selling “reform” as compassion and smart justice. When a man once looking at 124 years for drugging unconscious women is back on the street after about 20, residents hear a different message: the paperwork mattered more than the victims, and Sacramento’s experiments land on someone else’s block.
If a 124-year sentence for serial rape can shrink to two decades of real time, Californians should stop pretending the system still puts victims first.
