Andrew Stuart Luster was released to parole supervision on Oct. 11 after serving his sentence, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said, closing the prison term that followed his 2003 conviction on 86 felony counts. He was 62 years old at the time of his release.
The department said Luster was released after serving his full sentence as required by law, and that he had accumulated 977 days of work time and good conduct credit toward that date. That explanation landed hard in Glendora, where Mayor David Fredendall said in a Friday statement that his community was outraged and should not have to worry about safety because of a state decision that allows someone with a history of rape and violence to live near schools, parks, playgrounds, churches and community centers.
Luster’s case has long carried a public profile far beyond the courtroom. He is the great-grandson of Max Factor, and a jury saw video he made of himself engaging in sexual acts with women rendered unconscious by GHB. He fled to Mexico in 2003 after paying $1 million in bail and was later captured in Puerto Vallarta by Duane “Dog” Chapman.
The release also landed in the middle of a legal distinction that has shaped the case for years. In 2023, the Ventura County district attorney’s office explained that the rape of an unconscious person technically qualifies as a nonviolent offense under California law, and people convicted of a nonviolent felony typically must serve 50% of their sentence. Luster was sentenced to 124 years in prison in 2003, but Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz reduced that to 50 years in 2013 after vacating the original term.
That reduction changed the math of his incarceration. He has served about 25 years of the reduced sentence, including time under house arrest and in pretrial custody, and prosecutors said he would be released regardless in late 2026 because of the shorter term. Two years ago, a corrections department board moved to grant him early release on parole over the objections of all three victims, who appeared at the hearing and spoke against release, while prosecutors argued he continued to misrepresent his crimes and remained a threat to public safety. The decision was later reversed by a majority of parole board commissioners.
Ventura County Dist. Atty. Erik Nasarenko said last year that his office would “continue to strenuously oppose any early release from state prison,” but the state now says this was not an early release at all. For residents in Glendora and across the San Gabriel Valley, the immediate question is not whether Luster has finished his sentence; it is where he is living now, and how close that puts him to the places where families gather every day.
