Are California prisons stiffing inmates on $200 release payments? Lawsuit says they are

John Vaesau was counting on the $200 he was entitled to by law upon leaving Folsom State Prison in June 2023, after 33 years. He was surprised when he received none of it.

“They just threw me out like a piece of garbage,” Vaesau said. “Like after all that time, it was nothing to them.”

Now, Vaesau and another formerly incarcerated person are suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, alleging the state agency has illegally docked fees from the so-called “gate money” that former prisoners receive to help them cover basic necessities in their initial days of freedom.

The class action lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court estimates the corrections department has shortchanged over a million people since 1994. According to its regulations, the agency deducts money from release allowances if someone does not have dress-out clothes or arrangements for transportation.

Some, such as Vaesau, didn’t receive any money and they weren’t told why.

“I want to fight against this kind of system,” Vaesau, 49, said. “I’m hoping everybody can get what they got coming and for future people to not go through the same ordeal that I’ve gone through.”

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