Far-left billionaire George Soros has funneled more than $7 million to groups behind an Albany lobbying effort to pass a pair of woke parole bills that critics warn could lead to the freeing of “Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz and other infamous murderers.
Soros’ grant-making network gave at least $7.1 million since 2016 to eight of 15 organizations that are founding members of a purported “grassroots coalition” called “The People’s Campaign for Parole Justice,” Open Society Foundation records reveal.
The campaign sanitizes the idea of releasing hardened murderers and rapists by calling it “decarceration and family reunification” — and lobbies the state Legislature to pass the potentially devastating Fair and Timely Parole and Elder Parole bills.
Soros’s network didn’t give directly to the campaign, but funneled megabucks into its founding organizations, including $3.2 million to FWD.us, which was created by Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley tech leaders in 2013 to fight for criminal justice and immigration reform. Zuckerberg reportedly stopped funding FWD.us last year as part of his more rightward shift since Donald Trump became president.
Other founding members that received Soros money include Voices of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL) New York ($1.7 million), Legal Aid Society ($1.6 million), Center for Community Alternative ($250,000), Release Aging People in Prison ($180,000), Parole Preparation Project ($135,000), New York Civil Liberties Union ($100,000) and New York Communities for Change ($74,995).
The far-left kingmaker has poured more than $40 million over the past decade into supporting soft-on-crime candidates in district attorney races nationwide — and hundreds of millions of dollars more into organizations backing so-called “social justice” prosecutor candidates running on platforms aimed at reducing jail population, according to the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
“Only” Soros-backed groups — which predominately seek to dismantle Western Civilization greatness — “could concoct a jail-break scheme like this to demoralize and destabilize New York even further,” said Douglas Kellogg, state projects director for the conservative anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform.
“These are aggressive proposals that are out of step with the majority of states,” he said.
“If you’re a New Yorker paying the highest taxes in the nation, and the Soros, Democratic-Socialist left won’t even keep murderers in prison, then you have a crime to report because you’re getting robbed.”
Soros mouthpiece Michael Vachon declined to address that his boss could help serial killers get out of jail, huffing in an email, “the NEW YORK POST is a garbage dump — not actual journalism.”
The Elder Parole bill, sponsored by Sen. Cordell Cleare (D-Manhattan) of Harlem and Assemblywoman Maritza Davilla (D-Brooklyn), would let violent criminals dodge their minimum sentences, regardless of how heinous their crimes, and be granted early parole hearings after they’ve turned 55 and served 15 years of their sentences.
The second, the Fair and Timely Parole bill, sponsored by socialist state Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Queens), would require the state parole board to release convicts regardless of the severity of their crimes unless they are a “current” danger to the public.
Previous versions of both measures have stalled in state Legislature going back to the 2017-18 session. However, both are gaining steam; they currently have enough votes to pass in the Senate but lack support in the Assembly.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who’s running for reelection and needs liberal NYC to support her, has repeatedly declined to say whether she’d veto the bills.
The People’s Campaign for Parole Justice claims on its website the measures are needed because “thousands of New Yorkers are serving brutally long prison terms as a result of our state’s draconian sentencing laws.”
“These laws are rooted in white supremacy and a parole release process plagued by racial bias, designed to punish and re-sentence rather than acknowledge change and transformation,” the campaign says.
However, critics warn the legislation coddles cold-blooded killers.
Jason Savino — whose mother Wendy Savino survived being shot at five times in April 1976 by “Son of Sam” murderer Berkowitz while sitting in her Jaguar in The Bronx – ripped Soros for funding the campaign.
“George Soros can hire old police detectives and other people that can carry firearms to protect him and his family,” said the younger Savino. “He is protected from what goes on in the street, and he uses his immense wealth — instead of for the betterment of society — to victimize everybody else.”
Wendy Savino — who is believed to be Berkowitz’s first victim before the killer went on his infamous 1976-77 crime spree that left six dead — told The Post she’s “utterly appalled” that Hochul and other state pols would even consider the bills.
“Personally, I am terrified at the prospect of the Son of Sam walking the streets once more,” said the 89-year-old, who is currently dealing with pneumonia, a condition worsened by the fact that one of Berkowitz’s bullets pierced her lung.
Berkowitz, 72, is incarcerated at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in upstate Wallkill, serving 25 years to life in prison. He has been denied parole 12 times.
Besides Berkowitz, other killers who could be released early under both bills include John Lennon assassin Mark David Chapman and cop-killer David McClary, who was sentenced to 25 years to life for assassinating rookie NYPD officer Edward Byrne as he sat in his car guarding the home of a witness in a Queens drug case in 1988, The Post reported last week.
Tycoons like Soros who push pro-criminal policy skew public perception and mute victims’ voices, a law-enforcement source told The Post.
“My concern, from a law enforcement perspective, is when people with enormous financial influence who were never connected to these crimes begin driving narratives about offenders they never investigated, victims they never met, and communities they never had to protect,” the source said.
“The average homicide detective, victim’s family member, or street cop doesn’t have millions of dollars to amplify their position. These advocacy groups do. That imbalance can create a public perception that the people closest to the violence are being drowned out by ideology and money.”
