Attorney General Bill Lockyer Appoints Director for Office of Victims' Services

(SACRAMENTO) – Attorney General Bill Lockyer today announced the appointment of Jonathan Raven as Director of the Office of Victims' Services. The Office of Victims' Services (OVS) was created by Lockyer in 1999 to coordinate Department of Justice assistance and outreach programs for victims of crime.

"The Office of Victims' Services was created to ensure that the Attorney General's office is doing all that we can and should do to help California crime victims and their families," Lockyer said. "Jonathan Raven's experience, understanding and energy will not only enable him to maintain the high standards of this office but also continue building the programs, information and services that victims have a right to expect from government."

A 1991 graduate of Loyola Law School, Raven, 37, has been a deputy district attorney in Yolo County for the past six years and has prosecuted a variety of cases including child sexual assault, rape and murder. He spent a year and a half working with the Family Support Division prosecuting felony welfare fraud cases and failure to pay child support cases. He devised and implemented Yolo County's first "Deadbeat Parents" sweep on Father's Day in which county law enforcement agencies arrested over 30 defendants with outstanding warrants for owed child support. For the past five years, Raven has worked in the Criminal Division prosecuting all phases of major felony cases specializing in child molest cases, and he is currently prosecuting a five-week murder trial in Yolo County.

"I am thrilled to work for Bill Lockyer and all of the other outstanding people at the Attorney General's Office," Raven said. "The Attorney General and I both have so much compassion for victims and are also passionate about working to assist victims. There's nothing more rewarding than bringing some sense of justice to a crime victim...we can't make life the way it was, but we can help heal the deep emotional wounds. I look forward to continue to work directly with victims, to develop and implement programs for victims, and to help create new laws that promote the rights of victims. Working as a deputy district attorney has prepared me for this new and exciting challenge."

Raven is currently an advisory board member of Crime Victims United of California (CVUC). He is also a member of the Child Exploitation Task Force, the California District Attorneys Association and is chair of the City of Davis Hate Crimes Committee.

Over the past three years OVS has made improvements for victims in multiple areas including the creation of a notification program for family survivors in capital cases that provide ongoing updates about their cases and assistance exercising their rights with clemency and execution procedures. For victims of non-capital cases, OVS provides notification upon the filing of an appeal as well as information on the status of the final outcome of the appeal. In an effort to rescue victims of child abductions, in 1999 OVS spearheaded the first local Amber Alert program with Sheriff Mike Carona in Orange County and its expansion into seven Sacramento area counties last year. To reduce the financial burden that victims of crime can accrue, OVS established a statewide toll-free telephone number. In the past, victims paid for the calls they made to the Attorney General's office.

Victims of crime in California can contact the Office of Victims' Services at 1-877-433-9069.