Less than a year after being released from prison early for a murder conviction thanks to Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon’s soft-on-crime policies, 25-year-old Denmonne Lee has been charged with another killing.
In 2018, Lee participated in a gas station robbery in Antelope Valley, California. He, along with co-defendant Deonta “Fatboy” Johnson, was charged with the murder of Marine veteran John Rue in the process of committing the robbery.
Though Lee did not pull the trigger, he provided the weapon to Johnson and was charged with murder for his participation in the violent act. Following Ruh’s murder, police said Lee walked away “smiling” after the veteran was shot three times. According to another detail revealed during the trial, Lee also threatened to shoot his ex-girlfriend in a video rap he sent to her on her cell phone shortly after the incident for “snitching.”
Lee was initially charged as an adult, but as his case was winding its way through the court system in 2020, Gascon took office following a campaign cash infusion from liberal megadonor George Soros. One of the first policies Gascon implemented was a blanket ban on trying minors as adults – good news for Lee.
Following his conviction, Lee was sentenced to serve time at the county’s youth facility until he turned 25. He was released early on good behavior last June and initially touted as a great success story of the left-wing criminal justice “reform” movement. Lee gained admission to community college and landed a job at a nonprofit.
Then, in April, Lee was arrested and charged in the killing of 28-year-old Eric Ruffins back in January.
The news has generated yet another political firestorm for Gascon, who faces a strong re-election challenge from Republican Nathan Hochman this November. Michelle Brace, Ruh’s widow, has blasted Gascon for refusing to try Lee as an adult for that first murder, which likely would have meant he would still be behind bars. “He didn’t know what he was doing with his directives and the lives they’d shatter,” Brace said of Gascon, also noting that she plans to leave California but “won’t move until George Gascon is out of office.”
Kathy Cady, a victim’s rights attorney representing Brace, also told the LA Times that “if Gascon hadn’t stopped [Lee from] being tried in adult court, he’d be in prison for life. Instead, he was freed to commit another horrific murder.”
Notably, this isn’t the first time that a criminal let out of jail early thanks to Gascon’s policies has gone on to commit another grisly act.
In April of this year, 47-year-old Raymundo Duran shot LA Sheriff’s Deputy Samuel Aispuro in the back at a stop light. Duran has a long rap sheet that includes two felony assaults that he committed while serving an 11-year sentence for manslaughter. But due to Gascon’s policies, he was back out on the streets following a plea deal.
Thankfully, Aispuro was wearing his bulletproof vest and survived. But police officers Michael Paredas and Joseph Santana were not so lucky. Back in 2022, career criminal and known gang member Justin Williams Flores killed both men during a shootout in the San Gabriel Valley. Court records show that in 2021 Gascon offered the 35-year-old Flores a plea deal after he was charged for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Under the terms of that deal, despite being a repeat offender, Flores received the minimum sentence of probation, serving no jail time.
“Gascon is just letting all these criminals out and they just keep doing one crime after the other,” Olga Garcia, Santana’s mother, told a local Fox News affiliate at the time. “That guy should have been in jail… my son and the other officer would still be here.”
LA County Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami, who subsequently challenged Gascon in this year’s nonpartisan primary election, also said that Flores “should have been in custody for at least 32 months” according to state law following the 2021 conviction. But as Hatami noted, Gascon had defied that law and instead imposed his own far more lenient sentencing guidelines.
But while Gascon has treated violent criminals like Duran and Flores with kid gloves, he has thrown the book at individuals like 19-year-old USC student Ivan Gallegos, who recently defended himself from a homeless man who was breaking into cars on campus while threatening students by claiming “he had a gun.” Gallegos confronted the criminal, and in the ensuing scuffle, the homeless man died.
Gascon’s office initially charged Gallegos with homicide, threatening to send the student to jail for an act of self-defense, only dropping the charges after extensive public backlash.
While the families of the victims of Gascon’s second chance killers will never get their loved one’s back, they may take some solace knowing that voters have a chance to hold Gascon accountable and boot him from office in just a few months’ time.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
