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Cal. PEN § 289.5

This is the official text of Cal. PEN § 289.5, part of California’s Penal Code — defines crimes and sets criminal procedure in California.

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Official statutory text

(a) Every person who flees to this state with the intent to avoid prosecution for an offense which, if committed or attempted in this state, would have been punishable as one or more of the offenses described in subdivision (c) of Section 290, and who has been charged with that offense under the laws of the jurisdiction from which the person fled, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

(b) Every person who flees to this state with the intent to avoid custody or confinement imposed for conviction of an offense under the laws of the jurisdiction from which the person fled, which offense, if committed or attempted in this state, would have been punishable as one or more of the offenses described in subdivision (c) of Section 290, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

(c) No person shall be charged and prosecuted for an offense under this section unless the prosecutor has requested the other jurisdiction to extradite the person and the other jurisdiction has refused to do so.

(d) Any person who is convicted of any felony sex offense described in subdivision (c) of Section 290, that is committed after fleeing to this state under the circumstances described in subdivision (a) or (b) of this section, shall, in addition and consecutive to the punishment for that conviction, receive an additional term of two years’ imprisonment.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.