Los Angeles DA Gascon denies knowledge of jailhouse recordings in Hannah Tubbs case
Fox News' Jonathan Hunt reports on Deputy DA Shea Sanna saying he sent recordings to his bosses.
FIRST ON FOX: Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon has suspended the attorney who prosecuted a 26-year-old trans child molester who was accused of identifying as a woman only after DNA evidence linked her to a cold case crime, according to law enforcement sources.
Shea Sanna, who had been the lead prosecutor for part of the case, is accused of misgendering and "deadnaming" the convicted child molester Hannah Tubbs, who is now accused of beating a man to death in the woods with a rock in Kern County.
Sanna has argued in the past that jailhouse phone calls show Tubbs, now 27, was attempting to use gender identity to game the justice system – an argument that sources say made others in Gascon's office uncomfortable and led to the suspension.
He made his first public remarks on the incident on Twitter Friday afternoon.
CALIFORNIA TRANS CHILD MOLESTER HANNAH TUBBS GLOATS OVER LIGHT SENTENCE IN JAILHOUSE PHONE CALLS
Hannah Tubbs began identifying as female after being arrested in connection with a 2014 child molestation case in Los Angeles County. Tubbs pleaded not guilty Thursday to an April 2019 murder in nearby Kern County. (Los Angeles County)
"I was suspended for speaking out against the Gascón Administration," he wrote. "Misgendering Tubbs while informing them that they were being played is just their excuse for the suspension."
Tubbs has a lengthy criminal history in California and Idaho under the former name, James Tubbs – and allegedly began identifying as female after being arrested in connection with a 2014 child molestation case in which she pleaded guilty to attacking a 10-year-old girl in a Denny's bathroom stall.
Sanna subsequently raised concerns about a possible ruse. Gascon's office, under a series of stiff policy directives, sought to have the adult ex-con placed in a juvenile facility because the crime occurred before her 18th birthday.
"When you come to court, make sure you address me as her."
But a month later, Sanna said, after he sent a critical tweet about former Gascon adviser Alisa Blair's handling of another case, he found himself the subject of a complaint filed on her behalf.
"So it wasn’t when I first ‘misgendered’ Tubbs," he told Fox News Digital. "She did it in retaliation. Part of it, the reason why I suspended, is because I called out Tubbs to the administration and said I have recordings of him making up the name, gaming the system, joking about it and the date that it was made up. And I had reports where he's referring to himself as a ‘grown ass man.’"
LA District Attorney George Gascon. Gascon issued a new directive concerning how crimes are prosecuted against suspects who are not U.S. citizens. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
This was as Tubbs was being held in a facility for juveniles, because Gascon's policies treated the then-26-year-old as a minor because of the date of the initial crime.
"It wasn’t like I was going around being transphobic or malicious -- I brought it to their attention that they have a convicted child rapist trying to get himself into a juvenile facility as a woman, and he rapes little girls," he said. "Does anybody see a problem with that?"
Tubbs' victim, now an adult, has also disputed Tubbs' alleged gender identity and condemned Gascon last year and said the light sentence denied her any sense of justice.
Andrew Cachu, inset, was released six years into a 50-year murder sentence with help from LA DA George Gascon. Sanna criticized the move at the time and says his suspension may have been retaliation, based on the timing of when the initial complaint was filed. Deputy District Attorney Alisa Blair, a close Gascon ally, declined to present evidence at a hearing to determine whether he should remain in custody after aging out of the juvenile detention facility when he turned 25, Fox News Digital reported at the time. He got out and was soon rearrested on DUI and other charges after falling asleep in the middle of the road with an illegal gun in his car. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department)
"I’ve also heard that my attacker goes by she/them pronouns now," she told Fox News. "I see it also unfair to try him as a woman as well, seeing how he clearly didn’t act like one on January 1st of 2014."
Tubbs' light sentence in LA was cut short after prosecutors in Kern County leveled felony charges, including murder and robbery, in connection with the 2019 death of Michael Clark. She is being held there on $1 million bond, where jail records list the name as James Tubbs and court records show Hannah Tubbs. The next hearing there is in March.
Last year, Fox News Digital obtained explicit jailhouse recordings of Tubbs admitting it was wrong to attack a little girl but gloating over the light punishment.
"I’ve also heard that my attacker goes by she/them pronouns now. I see it also unfair to try him as a woman as well, seeing how he clearly didn’t act like one on January 1st of 2014."
The suspect boasted that nothing would happen after the guilty plead, due to Gascon's lenient policies for juvenile defendants and laughed about not having to go back to prison or register as a sex offender. Tubbs also made explicit remarks about the victim that are unfit to print.
LA PROSECUTOR BLASTS POLICY CHANGE AMID CONTROVERSY OVER TRANS CHILD MOLESTER CASE
In one of the calls, Tubbs tells her dad to start using female pronouns. In another, they laughed about choosing the new name, "Hannah."
"So now they're going to put me with other trannies that have seen their cases like mine or with one tranny like me that has a case like mine," Tubbs says. "So when you come to court, make sure you address me as her."
Then she says that if she goes to prison, she’s getting a sex change surgery to go into the women's facility, and the other person says, "There's some b---es in there, too."
District Attorney George Gascon announces charges for a woman who killed several people in a car crash. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital also learned last year that Tubbs was accused of sexually molesting a four-year-old girl at a California library in August 2013 while her mother was browsing books "just a few aisles over."
Tubbs has pleaded not guilty to the Kern County charges.
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