A transgender convicted child molester whose light sentence stoked anger at Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón was charged Tuesday with murder.
Hannah Tubbs, who admitted to molesting a 10-year-old girl in a Palmdale, California, Denny’s restaurant restroom in 2014 when he was 17, pleaded guilty eight years later after DNA evidence led police to him. He began identifying as a woman and was sentenced to just two years in a juvenile facility despite being 26, in a case that sparked fury at Gascón.
On Tuesday, Tubbs pleaded not guilty to the unrelated, April 21, 2019, murder of Michael Clark, whose body was found months later in the Kern River. Kern County Superior Court Judge David Zulfa referred to the defendant by his birth name, James Edward Tubbs, and ordered him held on $1 million bond in a men’s jail in Kern County.
Hannah Tubbs, trans child molester, pleads not guilty to murder, robbery chargeshttps://t.co/RHGortPVeO
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In the earlier case, Gascón refused to prosecute Tubbs in adult court as part of his directive that minor offenders be tried in juvenile court, even for serious crimes. He claimed that since Tubbs was two weeks shy of his 18th birthday when he molested the girl, he belonged in a juvenile facility even though he is now 26. Gascón also refused to require Tubbs to register as a sex offender.
Fox News later obtained a recording of a phone call Tubbs made from jail in which he boasted to hs father about getting off easy.
“Don’t worry about it,” Tubbs said. “It’s a strike, but they’re gonna plead, I’m going to plead out to them and plead guilty.”
“You won’t have to register?” her father asked.
“I won’t have to do none of that,” Tubbs replied.
“So what are they going to do to you then?”
“Nothing,” Tubbs answered, then laughed.
Tubbs’ victim, who was 10 at the time of the attack, told Fox News that the handling of the case has been “insulting” and “unfair” to her.
“The things he did to me and made me do that day was beyond horrible for a ten-year-old girl to have to go through,” she told Fox. “I want him tried as an adult for the crimes he committed against me.”
“I’ve also heard that my attacker goes by she/them pronouns now,” she added. “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.”
Gascón, who is facing a recall attempt, was humiliated by the case and said he would re-evaluate his sentencing policies.
“While for most people several years of jail time is adequate, it may not be for Ms. Tubbs,” he said. “If we knew about her disregard for the harm she caused, we would have handled this case differently.”