Gerhartsreiter’s parole eligibility under the twenty-six-years-to-life sentence begins in December 2029. A parole hearing is scheduled for November 2028 — a pre-eligibility hearing, which is part of California’s parole process for certain categories of sentence. At that hearing and any subsequent ones, the parole board will evaluate his suitability for release.
The history of parole grants in first-degree murder cases in California is not one in which release at the first available hearing is the expected outcome, particularly in high-profile cases. The parole board’s assessment will include consideration of the crime’s nature and circumstances, his conduct during incarceration, his expressions of remorse or continued denial, and the positions of any victims’ representatives who appear at the hearing.
He has, in the accounts available, maintained that he did not kill Jonathan Sohus. A denial of responsibility is not, by itself, a bar to parole — the board assesses a range of factors — but it is a factor that bears on certain elements of the parole suitability assessment.
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## The German Citizen and the Deportation Question
Gerhartsreiter is a German citizen. He entered the United States in the late 1970s and remained for decades, accumulating the identities and the criminal history that culminated in the California murder conviction. He was never a United States citizen. The green card marriage of 1981 gave him legal residence, but not citizenship.
Following his 2013 California conviction, reporting indicated that federal immigration authorities intended to pursue deportation proceedings against him at the conclusion of his California sentence. This would mean that after any release from California custody — whether by parole or otherwise — he would be subject to removal to Germany.