By Madhuri Dey
July 2, (THAINDIAN NEWS) On Thursday lawmakers of the state of California approved a $20 million payout from the state to the kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard under a settlement after it was found that the state failed to supervise properly sex offender Phillip Garrido who allegedly held Jaycee Dugard in his backyard for 18 years. The settlement was announced in a joint statement by the state Department of Justice and the family of Jaycee Dugard. The statement mentioned that the amount of $20 million will help now 30-year-old Jaycee Dugard and her two children from Phillip Garrido to reunite with their family and get the “services and treatments” that they need to recuperate from the ordeal.

The bill was passed by both the houses of the Legislature with overwhelming vote responses. While at the state Assembly the bill received an approval with 70-2 votes in its favor with seven members not voting, at the Senate it received 30-1 votes in its favor. The bill is due to be signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and a spokesman for the Governor has mentioned to media sources that the Governor plans to sing the bill.

Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped at the age of eleven from South Lake Tahoa. She was discovered in August last year in the backyard of Phillip Garrido’s Antioch compound. Jaycee Dugard and her family filed complaint against the California Department of Corrections in February where they accused the Department for its “various lapses” which had led the family to suffer “psychological, physical, and emotional injury”. Phillip Garrido a convicted and kidnapper and rapist was on parole for a decade during the period and held Jaycee Dugard as a virtual sex slave. The family had alleged that Jaycee could have been discovered earlier if the department had kept a track of Phillip Garrido.