SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — On November 7, 2024, 1980s skateboarding visionary, Mark "Gator" Rogowski will for the third time in five years appear at a parole hearing for the 1991 brutal rape and murder of Jessica Bergsten.
If past hearings are indicative, California Parole Commissioners may very well grant Rogowski's release. The final decision, however, again rests with Governor Gavin Newsom, who has twice in five years reversed the board's decision, keeping Rogowski imprisoned at Donovan State Prison in San Diego.
As the November 7 hearing approaches, Rogowski's attorneys are pursuing a parallel strategy: a lawsuit challenging Newsom's previous parole reversal, claiming Newsom failed to provide adequate reasons for overturning the board's 2022 decision to release Rogowski from prison.
"[My client] doesn't present a danger to the public," argues Rogowski's attorney, Laura Sheppard. "He's served thirty-three years and paid a heavy price. While no amount of time can restore Ms. Bergsten's life, the legal question is whether he poses a public danger. Mark has demonstrated he doesn't."
The brutal nature of Bergsten's rape and murder, however, has generated strong opposition to Rogowski's release.
San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan is among those who object to Rogowski's parole. Ms. Stephan says the brutal nature of Bergsten's death plays a part.
"All murders are bad. All sexual assaults are terrible, but there is some distinguishing between them," District Attorney Stephan told CBS 8. "You know, there are those murders where somebody's young or they get pulled into an activity that's spontaneous and violent. The result is terrible. A life is lost. But that's very different than someone taking another human being and torturing them."
The Murder of Jessica Bergsten
On the evening of March 21, 1991, Jessica Bergsten, a friend of Rogowski's ex-girlfriend, went to the pro-skater's Carlsbad apartment on Maya Linda Road.
Rogowski, who according to court documents, had been sober for months before meeting Bergsten that night, took drugs and alcohol while Bergsten was at his home.
At the end of the night, as Bergsten prepared to leave the apartment, Rogowski snapped.
The 24-year-old celebrity skateboarder struck Bergsten in the head with a steel steering wheel lock several times.
Rogowski handcuffed the near-unconscious Bergsten and raped her.
Shortly before dawn the following morning, Rogowski stuffed Bergsten into a surfboard bag and choked her to death.
He loaded Bergsten's body into his car and drove from his beachside condo in Carlsbad to the desert in Ocotillo where he buried her in a shallow grave.
Bergsten's body was found weeks later.
As the investigation into Bergsten's death intensified, Rogowski turned himself in, later leading police to the makeshift desert grave where he dumped the 22-year-old's body.
Rogowski pleaded 'no contest' in his criminal trial and was sentenced to 25 years to life for murder with an additional six years for the rape.
Parole Granted Then Overturned
During his December 2019 parole hearing, after two unsuccessful bids, Rogowski told parole commissioners what led him to commit the heinous murder and rape of Jessica Bergsten. Rogowski also told board commissioners how he started a help group in prison to address violence against women and gender abuse prevention.
According to court documents, Rogowski told commissioners before the murder he had suffered from drug and alcohol abuse, callousness and law-breaking, poor relationship skills, that he suffered from narcissism, and was incapable of managing his anger.
Following his testimony and after reviewing the case, commissioners determined Rogowski was rehabilitated and that he fully recognized what led him to violence. In their ruling, commissioners wrote, in part, "You were able to explain the consequences of your behavior, how it impacted the victim, the victim's family you had a good understanding of that."
As is the case with any parole board decision for release, Rogowski's case landed in Governor Gavin Newsom's office for review.
Tasked with the authority to either send the parole determination back to commissioners for further review, accept the board's decision, or reverse it, Newsom decided on the latter, stating Rogowski did not fully understand the impacts of his crime nor did he grasp what led him to carry out the violent rape and murder of Bergsten.
Doing so prevented Rogowski's release and required him to wait for three years until his next scheduled parole hearing.
In 2022, Rogowski again made his case for release. Once again he used drug and alcohol abuse, anger against women, and low self-esteem as some of the reasons for the murder while adding he was pathologically jealous and was a womanizer.
As was the case in 2019, the parole board found Rogowski suitable for release. "We believe that you do have an understanding of self-awareness and the causative factors of your crime and your sexual sadism," reads the board's findings. "You talked today about the rage, being a sex addict, exposing yourself to hardcore porn, having an entitled attitude, as well as your view of women at the time and your power and control issues. You also talked about your distorted belief system, and being jealous of your use of alcohol and drugs at the time. Today, you understand your triggers and you talked to us about those including your anger, your entitlement, your loneliness, and your drug, and alcohol use in unhealthy relationships."
District Attorney Summer Stephan objected to the board's decision. DA Stephan found Rogowski presented a danger to the public. Her office pleaded with Governor Newsom to overturn the parole for a second time.
“The family and friends of Jessica Bergsten deserve the continued promise of justice in this case,” wrote Stephan. “Our office argued strongly against releasing this violent defendant...The District Attorney’s Office argued at the hearing that Rogowski remains an unreasonable risk of danger to society.”
In November 2022, Newsom reversed the board's decision.
The Reversal and the Lawsuit
As for his decision to overrule the parole board, Governor Newsom provided two main reasons; First, the Governor cited two altercations Rogowski had which resulted in "verbal disagreements" with fellow prisoners.
Newsom also found Rogowski needed to "deepen [his] insight into the nexus between Rogowski's reported sex addiction and violent crime."
In response, Rogowski filed a lawsuit against the Governor in 2023 alleging the Governor failed to provide adequate reasons for the reversal.
In May 2024, a Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of the state, stating Rogowski did not possess, "sufficient positive social and coping skills to succeed on parole" while adding that the former pro-skater's verbal altercation in prison showed he still had a lapse of judgment when confronted.
In September 2024, Rogowski's attorneys appealed the court's ruling, and three weeks later an appellate court ordered the State of California to "show cause" for Newsom's decision to reverse the parole board's decision, meaning the state must provide legal justifications for their decision to reverse Rogowski's parole.
The State is required to respond by November 26, nearly three weeks after Rogowski's November 7 parole hearing.
"The governor is supposed to follow the same mandate as the parole board, meaning he's only supposed to overturn parole if he finds that there's an actual risk to public safety," said Rogowski's attorney, Laura Sheppard.
Added Sheppard, "No amount of punishment can make up for what [Ms. Bergsten] suffered. While Mark feels deeply about that is the case, doing so is not what our legal system in California is based on. We require that people be punished for a certain amount of time. In Mark's case, it was 25 years, and then after he'd been punished for 25 years, that question is set aside, and the question becomes, can we safely release him? Is he a danger? That's the question that the parole board, the courts, and the governor must make. I think the answer is clear."
Plans if Parole is Granted
Attorneys for Rogowski say he has a set plan in case he is granted release or if his lawsuit is successful. If released, Rogowski will live at a transitional housing program for sex offenders and has several plans in case he relapses and returns to drugs or other personal triggers.
Rogowski's attorney Sheppard says between his clean record in prison and the programs he's created to help prevent violence against women, Rogowski has already shown he's rehabilitated and deserving of a second chance.
"In 33 years of prison, [Rogowski] has a total of one write-up for a small infraction. He's been a model prisoner when it comes to his behavior and his work to rehabilitate himself. He's been remorseful since day one. He created a program called Gender Abuse Prevention because he identified that his misogynistic woman-hating attitude back at the time of the crime was part of what caused him to do what he did."
Meanwhile, San Diego County's top prosecutor Summer Stephan is not convinced.
"I can't help but picture the victims, last thoughts, you know, to die in that kind of terror and fear. Mr. Rogowski had many opportunities to back out of that situation, and he didn't There are just some crimes that stand out.
"I believe in rehabilitation. I believe in restorative justice. We have so many programs that help us put those forth in a safe way for the community, but there are just certain crimes that it's hard to think that someone has changed from the time that that crime was committed. When you take a helpless woman and you strike her over the head with a metal bar that you got from your car and then tie her up and you repeatedly rape her, and then that's not enough. You put her inside your [surfboard bag] and suffocate her to death. I mean, that's torture, rape, murder. Those are unique cases. They stand out."
CBS 8 reached out to the Bergsten family to comment on this article but did not receive a response.
Rogowski also declined to be interviewed for the story for fear that the interview would, according to his attorney, "further hurt the family."