A man who pleaded guilty to brutally raping and murdering a woman in San Luis Obispo County is set to walk free after Gov. Gavin Newsom refused to block his parole — despite a prosecutor’s repeated pleas to keep him behind bars.
Alberto Tamez Jr., 75, who was convicted of viciously raping and strangling Genevieve Adaline Moreno in 1974, was granted parole by the state board late last year despite San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow fighting his release at every step.
Newsom’s office could have intervened and kept Tamez locked up, but chose to cut him loose — leading Dow to condemn the governor’s inaction.
“I think the right thing would be to stop letting violent criminals out of our prisons just to satisfy his policy desire to empty prisons,” Dow exclusively told The California Post.
“I can’t change the system he created without letting voters know how vulnerable they are by letting out dangerous criminals to empty prisons,” he added. “I think the governor should not be letting everyone out, but he’s made no bones about it.”
Newsom has not publicly addressed his decision and his office did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
“When you rape, strangle, brutalize and murder a woman — in my perspective and point of view — that should be the death penalty or life without parole,” Dow said.
The governor’s lack of action in the Tamez case has led to shock and anger, as it comes on the heels of other of high-profile parole decisions.
He is one of several inmates who have recently benefited from California’s parole reforms, especially the Newsom-backed Elderly Parole Program, which allows inmates 50 or older who have served at least 20 years behind bars to seek parole consideration.
Gregory Lee Vogelsang, a 57-year-old Sacramento-area child molester, was sentenced to 355 years to life for kidnapping and molesting five boys. He was granted parole in late 2025 before the parole board later agreed to reconsider the release.
David Allen Funston, a serial child molester convicted in 1999 of kidnapping and sexually assaulting multiple children younger than 7 in Sacramento County, was also set for release after a parol board decision until Placer County prosecutors stepped in with new charges.
Israel Ceja, a Yolo County man, was sentenced to 139 years in prison in 2000 for repeatedly raping and molesting his stepdaughter beginning when she was 11 years old. Ceja, who later admitted during a parole hearing that he was still attracted to young girls, was initially recommended for release before the parole board reversed the decision after backlash from Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig.
Dow said his office repeatedly fought against Tamez’s release, including sending a deputy district attorney to oppose his parole during the December board hearing.
“When California reforms the system, policymakers focus on making it more compassionate for criminals while forgetting about the impact on victims,” the prosecutor continued. “I think Californians are at a point where they have had enough.”
GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton also ripped Newsom over the decision.
“I’m sick of hearing from Gavin Newsom that he has no power to intervene in these outrageous and disgusting decisions,” he told The Post. “That is total bulls–t and he knows it.”
Tamez pleaded no contest in 1974 after targeting Moreno, 56, who was working a shift at a bar in the blue-collar farming community of Nipomo. Her badly beaten body was discovered about a quarter-mile away in a field under a grove of eucalyptus trees.
He pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Dow argued that no one at that time of his conviction would have ever expected he’d go free today.
“In 1974, at that time when he was sentenced, nobody was ever getting released for his kind of crime. The law didn’t allow for it,” Dow said.
“Good behavior didn’t mean anything — the heinousness of the crime kept you in prison.”
Now, decades later and with no surviving family to speak on Moreno’s behalf, her killer will be released into society. The murder in the summer of 1974 remains haunting to this day.
Investigators identified Tamez as the lone attacker after finding blood on his clothes and debris from the crime scene stuck to his clothing. He admitted to dragging Moreno from the bar, beating her while she begged him to stop and leaving her unconscious after he could no longer detect her breathing, according to prosecutors.
The district attorney said his office has increasingly tried to shift public attention back toward crime victims instead of offenders.
“As part of my role as president of the California District Attorneys Association, my office has started using the phrase ‘criminal and victim justice system’ instead of ‘criminal justice system,’” Dow said.
“Continuing to call it the ‘criminal justice system’ overlooks the fact that every crime has a victim.”
