California to Compensate Jaycee Dugard With $20 Million

July 1, 2010— -- The state of California approved a $20 million payment today to kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard for failing to properly supervise the registered sex offender who held her captive for 18 years.

California legislators today overwhelmingly approved the negotiated settlement the state and Dugard. The allocation was part of a larger Assembly bill, labeled only as "claims against the state; payment."

Though there were three other claims in the same bill, the total sum was $21.1 million, giving the lion's share to Dugard, now 30 and the mother of two daughters she bore while in captivity.

The bill will now to go Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk for approval, but because of a glitch caused by the state's operating without a budget into the new fiscal year, the governor will have to formally request to see the legislation.

Schwarzenegger will sign the bill, spokesman Aaron McLear said today.

The settlement was reached with Dugard and the Department of Justice on June 24.

The governor's office referred requests for comment to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which confirmed the settlement, but did not comment further. Jaycee Dugard's spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer could also not be immediately reached for comment.

The state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation came under fire in the weeks and months after Dugard's rescue in August 2009 for not properly supervising Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender who was on parole.

A scathing investigation last year by the California Office of the Inspector General found Garrido's state parole officers had missed numerous opportunities to locate and rescue Dugard and her children from their backyard prison.

As late as 2006, police were called to the house to investigate reports that Garrido had children living with him. Even then, Dugard and her children were never found. During parole checks, Garridos house was inspected, but officers never checked the backyard.

The Dugard case, as well as this year's conviction of registered sex offender John Albert Gardner for the murder of southern California teenagers Amber DuBois and Chelsea King, brought to light the inadequacies of the state's parole sytem, which struggles with a disproportionately high number of offenders to parole officers.