By John Simerman
Contra Costa Times
PLACERVILLE — Phillip and Nancy Garrido have confessed to their roles in the abduction and years-long sexual bondage of Jaycee Dugard near Antioch, with Nancy Garrido giving one interview to investigators while Dugard sat in the room, Nancy Garrido’s lawyer said Monday outside court.
He confirmed that she confessed that she was the one who snatched Jaycee off the street.
Before a bank of TV cameras, Stephen Tapson appealed to Dugard, now 30, to weigh in on a sentence in the abduction of 11-year-old Jaycee off her South Lake Tahoe street in 1991 and years of confinement.
“Jaycee, please talk,” he said in a direct plea for leniency.
Tapson said El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson has offered a sentence of 241 years to life to Nancy Garrido, 55, in a plea deal that would spare Dugard and her two teenage daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido from testifying at a trial.
The deal for Phillip Garrido amounts to 440 years to life in prison, Tapson said. Nancy Garrido participated in the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Dugard, but never physically in the sexual abuse, he said.
“She was their mother. She delivered the kids. She fed them, took them places,” Tapson said. “She’s guilty, obviously, of kidnapping and a bunch of other charges, (but) she should at least be able to walk the beach with a walker at some time.”
Pierson declined to comment following a brief court hearing Monday afternoon in which Judge Douglas Phimister postponed an arraignment for Phillip Garrido, 59, until March 17.
Nancy Garrido already has pleaded not guilty to an 18-count indictment that includes several counts of kidnapping, kidnapping for sexual purposes, forcible rape and forcible lewd acts upon a child. It also includes 13 special allegations.
The interview of Nancy Garrido in Dugard’s presence took place several months ago in a sheriff’s bureau office in Placerville. Dugard was described as an observer who could verify the accuracy of Nancy Garrido’s statements.
They had not seen each other since police arrested the Garridos at a Concord parole office in August, 2009.
Nancy Garrido was in tears when she saw Dugard, Tapson said. A source familiar with the investigation said Dugard has moved on from the couple, for whom she lied to police before their arrests.
“She does not have any feelings at all for them and probably will never again,” the source said. “She’s strong.”
Tapson said the Garridos made their confessions “frankly, in the hope for mercy.” Without a deal, he said, he would likely argue at trial that Nancy Garrido fell under her husband’s mind control.
Authorities say the couple held Dugard captive for 18 years in a hidden warren of sheds, tents and outbuildings that state parole officials monitoring Phillip Garrido never found.
They claim that Phillip Garrido videotaped Jaycee’s sexual abuse over the course of several years following her abduction and into the start of her first teen pregnancy. Neither girl ever received formal schooling or medical care.
Earlier this month, Phillip Garrido’s lawyer stipulated to his mental competency, waiving a jury trial on the issue. Discussions then began for a plea deal.
Phillip Garrido continues to cultivate a salt-and-pepper beard and wore orange jail scrubs Monday, sitting in the back row of the jury box with his lawyer. Several seats away sat his wife, who has taken to shielding her face from media with her graying mane.
El Dorado County Judge Douglas Phimister earlier this month suspended monthly phone chats between them from the Placerville jail, where they have remained since their arrests.
On Monday, Phimister refused to unseal grand jury transcripts and other court records. Bay Area News Group and other media members are seeking the documents, which include Phillip Garrido’s mental health records and detailed testimony that Dugard gave to the grand jury. Phimister, in a 10-page ruling, found that releasing the transcripts and health records before jury selection would prejudice the couple’s right to a fair trial.
Phillip Garrido, a convicted rapist on lifetime parole, had visited the UC-Berkeley campus with the two girls a day before the arrests, seeking a permit to espouse his unique religious views on campus. Two wary campus officials ran a check and called his parole officer. He showed up at the parole office with his wife, Jaycee and the two girls, leading to hours of questioning and, ultimately, the couple’s arrest.
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