Robert Dean Rustad. (File photo courtesy of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Two prison inmates serving life sentences in high-profile San Diego County crime cases will go before the state’s Board of Parole Hearings Wednesday.
One, Robert Dean Rustad, dubbed the “Del Mar Rapist,” is serving a 326-years-to-life prison sentence for raping multiple women between 1992 and 1996. Aerith Asora, meanwhile, was convicted, along with sister Brae Hansen, of killing their stepfather, local attorney Timothy MacNeil.
They are eligible for parole hearings due to recent changes to state law.
Those law changes altered the parole eligibility for inmates who are 50 years of age or older and have served at least 20 years, as well as inmates who were under the age of 25 when they committed the crime.
Rustad, who was between 19 and 22 years old at the time of the rapes, was denied youthful parole last year and is no longer eligible to receive it.
Wednesday’s hearing has been granted pursuant to the elder parole law because Rustad is 51 years old and has spent over 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Rustad broke into seven women’s homes, then sexually assaulted or raped six of them, with some of the victims tied up and threatened at knifepoint.
Asora, formerly known as Nathan Gann, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, but will receive a parole hearing under the youthful parole law. Asora was 19 years old at the time of the murder.
Prosecutors said Asora and Hansen staged their stepfather’s 2007 killing as a home invasion robbery at their Rolando Village residence, during which Asora shot MacNeil four times. Hansen was denied parole earlier this year.
The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, which is opposing both inmates’ release, said in a statement that nearly 70% of parole hearings it handled last year were a result of the elder and/or youthful parole laws.