A California parole board has denied release to a 65-year-old man serving 225 years to life in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting his girlfriend's young daughter, keeping him behind bars at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla for at least three more years. Thomas Lee Frazier had his first parole hearing under the state's elderly parole program on Wednesday, and the Board of Parole Hearings panel rejected his bid for release.
Frazier was 41 when he began molesting the victim in 2002, according to KRON4, which reports the abuse continued for four years per the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office. The victim was 9 years old in 2002. San Mateo County Child Protective Services received an anonymous tip, prompting investigators to interview the girl, whom Frazier had helped raise since infancy and who called him her father, according to SFGate. Frazier worked as a truck driver and lived with the victim's mother at the time.
How Investigators Built Their Case
During Frazier's 2007 trial in San Mateo County Superior Court, prosecutors presented a police-recorded phone call in which Frazier told the 12-year-old victim he was attracted to her and wanted her to learn about sex from him, SFGate reported at the time. Defense lawyers argued that Frazier's confession to police was taken out of context. A jury took just two hours to convict him on all 21 counts of child molestation and 15 counts of aggravated sexual assault following an eight-day trial that concluded on February 17, 2007, per KRON4's account of the case.
At sentencing the following month, defense attorneys asked Superior Court Judge Joseph Scott for a single term of 15 years to life. Deputy District Attorney Gregory Devitt instead pushed for consecutive sentences across all counts to guarantee Frazier would never walk free, and the judge agreed, stacking the counts and imposing the maximum sentence. Scott called Frazier's actions “unspeakable,” the station's report notes. Frazier had been held without bail in San Mateo County jail.
Victim Registered But Did Not Attend Hearing
Per prosecutors, the victim registered for Wednesday's parole hearing but did not participate. The board's decision means Frazier, now 65, will not get another chance to seek release for three years — a term that aligns with the minimum deferral period required under California's Marsy's Law, which mandates boards set a wait of at least three years and up to 15 years after a parole denial.
New State Law Signed the Same Day
Frazier's hearing came as lawmakers considered Assembly Bill 2727, a proposal to amend Penal Code § 3055 to exclude people convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and other serious sex offenses from California's Elderly Parole Program, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office. Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, the bill's author, proposed it amid public backlash over 2025 parole decisions that gave early release consideration to aging child predators David Allen Funston and Gregory Lee Vogelsang, as detailed by CalMatters. Hoodline covered Nguyen's push to bar offenders from elderly parole back in March.
California's Elderly Parole Program, created under Penal Code § 3055 in 2014, allows inmates 50 and older who have served at least 20 years to seek parole consideration, a policy originally meant to ease prison overcrowding.
For now, Frazier remains at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, where his case sits at the intersection of a program meant to offer aging inmates a path to release and a legislature now moving to close that path for people convicted of crimes like his.
