Transgender woman who pleaded guilty to molesting girl, 10, could serve only SIX MONTHS

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A mentally disturbed transgender woman who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in 2014 could serve as little as six months in a juvenile detention facility, after woke Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon refused to prosecute the 26-year-old as an adult for the crime committed shortly before their 18th birthday.

Hannah Tubbs identified as a male, going by James, on New Year’s Eve in 2014 when they spotted a 10-year-old girl at a Denny’s in Palmdale, California.

They followed the girl into the bathroom, held her by the throat and forced their hand down the girl’s pants. They only stopped when someone came into the restroom when they fled the scene. 

The ‘violent child molester,’ who has been charged with crimes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California was only connected to the crime after being arrested for another crime in 2019, according to Deputy District Attorney Shea Sanna. 

Tubbs was two weeks away from their 18th birthday at the time of the crime – with Gascon refusing to sentence Tubbs as an adult because the defendant was 17 when the attack took place. 

On Thursday, Tubbs was sentenced to two years in a juvenile detention facility. Gascon ordered Tubbs to be held at a Secure Youth Treatment Facility (SYTF) but separated from other juvenile inmates and housed with the females in isolation.

Two years is the maximum sentence for any juvenile in the new SYTF program over the age of 25, Sanna explained. LA courts are required to complete quarterly progress reviews for juvenile wards. After two reviews, a judge may decided if an inmate is eligible to be released or serve a reduced sentence due to good behavior.

Gascon said he was concerned Tubbs could be victimized in an adult facility as a trans woman and said a probation report recommended she be sentenced to home confinement. 

Tubbs might also qualify as ‘developmentally disabled’ and has multiple mental illnesses, the LA Times reported. 

‘So after six months in custody, Tubbs would be eligible for a reduction in time or release’ on good behavior, Sanna told DailyMail.com. However, the DA finds Tubbs’ chances of being released after six months ‘highly unlikely.’  

Currently, there are no SYFT facilities in LA so Tubbs will eventually be housed at Sylmar Juvenile Hall after some time in county jail, the DA’s office noted. 

Tubbs’ defense team has indicated that they plan to file a motion to have them released from isolation claiming it is a violation of the Constitution. 

At the time, police said the suspect was a panhandler with the nickname ‘Shrink’ who frequented a nearby Chevron gas station early mornings. 

They were described as an 18- to 20-year-old man, standing about 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing about 150 pounds, ABC reported at the time.

The man walked with a noticeable limp and was ‘holding his hands down in an odd fashion,’ according to a county sheriff’s sergeant. 

Tubbs then vanished, until they were arrested in Idaho in 2019 on suspicion of battery. Tubbs was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for a stabbing and served time in a state prison when they were connected to the 2014 molestation. 

DNA entered into a database that matched Tubbs with the sexual assault at Denny’s, and the accused was brought back to California – by which point there were arrests, for battery, drug possession and probation violations in several states. 

Tubbs was eventually brought to LA in November 2021 and quickly confessed to the sexual crime. By this point, Tubbs had transitioned and was known as Hannah.  

But Gascon refused to press for jail time in an adult facility, as the crime was committed while Tubbs was a minor, as is the DA’s standard office policy. 

‘The defendant entered an open plea to the court, leaving it up to the judge to decide what the sentence should be,’ a spokesman for Gascon’s office said. 

‘Our office is seeking that he be placed in a custodial setting in a sheriff’s facility for two years.’ 

Gascon’s approach has sparked widespread anger, even within his own office.

A victims’s statement was read during the trial but the family of the young girl has identified themselves and never spoken to the media.  

Sanna is ‘frustrated’ because he believes that Tubbs should have been tried as an adult and noted that Tubbs did not identify as a woman until the charges were brought against him. 

‘This case is frustrating and a lot of people are upset and morale is down,’ he told DailyMail.com. A father himself, he described the case as ‘every parent’s worst nightmare.’ 

He noted that Tubbs has now been relocated from state prison to a juvenile facility. 

‘It’s completely backwards and as a prosecutor I never thought that I’d have to argue that a violent child molester who is an adult should not be housed with children.

‘However, as a result a sexual predator has been housed with his prey. That is not justice.’ 

LA County Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami, a prosecutor and supporter of the movement to recall Gascon, said Tubbs was too dangerous to be in the juvenile system.

‘This was done with limited guidance and no concerns for public safety,’ Hatami said speaking of California’s system to handle violent juveniles.  

‘This clearly shows you the dangerous aspect of the blanket policies of George Gascon,’ he said. 

‘Under George Gascon’s ‘reforms,’ a 26-year-old admitted child molester is being housed with juveniles,’ Hatami said. ‘She may be released early, back into the community, with no sex registration. Only innocent victims and the public suffer because of George Gascón’s so-called ‘progress.’ 

‘This is not somebody who should appear in the juvenile system.’   

Another LA County Deputy District Attorney, John McKinney, also strongly disagreed with Gascon’s decision. 

‘The DA is trying to distance himself from this result and lay blame on the judge when in fact, it’s only happened because of his policy against transferring juvenile cases to adult court,’ said McKinney. 

‘Two years is a pathetic outcome for man who is a career criminal with felony convictions in multiple states and who committed forcible sexual assault on a 10-year-old girl in a Denny’s bathroom.

‘What is happening is our district attorney is ushering him right out the door, back onto the streets of this county and God knows where else he might roam. 

‘It’s madness, it makes a mockery of our criminal justice system.’   

Kathryn Barger, on the board of supervisors for Los Angeles County’s Fifth District, said the family of the young girl attacked by Tubbs deserved justice.

‘It’s useless to catch criminals like Hannah Tubbs if we don’t follow through and seek justice for victims such as the 10-year-old girl she sexually assaulted,’ said Barger. 

‘She bears the burden of a lifetime of trauma. 

‘[Tubbs] will be offered therapeutic interventions under the auspices of ‘restorative justice’ … and possibly granted only probation or parole.

‘Where is the justice for her young victim and her family?’

Lt. Richard Ruiz with the LA County Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit – the same unit that investigated the Tubbs case in 2014 – told Fox his department is outraged.  

‘I would ask the public to reach out to Mr Gascon and express their concerns and their outrage on a matter such as this involving a sexual predator,’ he said.

Gascon was elected to the DA’s office in November 2020 campaigning on a reform agenda when he successfully unseated incumbent DA Jackie Lacey. 

But last spring, victims rights advocates joined Sheriff Alex Villanueva in launching a bid to recall the against newly-elected DA. 

The protests did not end Gascon’s recall but protestors’ anger has not been subdued. This month LA residents were granted permission to launch a second bid to recall the ‘soft-on-crime’ DA.