Embattled Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s staffers say he was shamed into changing his stance on ‘outlier’ juvenile sentencing because of a bombshell report that suggested one of the criminals he advocated for had little remorse.
He flip-flopped on his famously reformative approach to justice last week after jailhouse audio recordings obtained by Fox News captured transgender pedophile Hannah Tubbs bragging about her light sentence in a juvenile facility.
Tubbs was sentenced to two years in jail for molesting a 10-year-old girl inside a restaurant bathroom.
After the top prosecutor became aware of troubling comments Tubbs made in jail – including that she wouldn’t have to register as a sex offender and that ‘nothing’ would be done to punish her – Gascón said he’s rethinking his approach.
‘It’s unfortunate that she gamed the system,’ Gascón told the Los Angeles Times. ‘If I had to do it all over again, she would be prosecuted in adult court.’
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However, his critics say his apparent remorse is just a public stunt as recall efforts against him grow.
‘He knew Fox was going to run with those tapes. It was damage-control time,’ Eric Siddall, a deputy district attorney and outspoken critic of the DA, told the Times.
Amid growing frustration with the progressive prosecutor, more than 600 deputy district attorneys throughout LA county endorsed his recall Tuesday during an Association of Deputy District Attorneys meeting.
Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor George Gascon said he regrets giving a transgendered pedophile who molested a 10-year-old in a restaurant bathroom a light sentence
The convict, who now goes by the name Hannah Tubbs, was 17 when she committed the crime. While serving time in a juvenile time, she bragged about not having to register as a sex offender
Gascón was sworn in as LA County’s 43rd district attorney in December 2020, and critics have blamed him for a spike in violent crime in the region.
Los Angeles has seen a 54 percent increase in murders since 2019, a rise in the number of street shootings since 2020, and an increase in the number of armed holdups.
The city has also been shocked by the broad daylight murder of Brianna Kupfer on January 13 by a mentally ill man who stabbed her at random while she worked in an upscale furniture store.
About 98 percent of prosecutors participating in the vote supported Gascón’s ousting after he declined an invitation to meet with them and defend his controversial policies. There was a record-high 83 percent turnout in the more than 800-member union who voted.
‘This vote is by those who are intimately familiar with how Mr. Gascón’s policies actually play out on a day-to-day basis,’ said ADDA president Michele Hanisee.
‘We believe the vote of our members will resonate with the voters of Los Angeles as they decide whether to recall Gascón from office and restore public safety as the priority of the District Attorney’s office.’
Since being sworn into office, Gascón has refused to meet with prosecutors to explain the logic behind his policies, the union said.
Union Vice President Eric Siddall likened the DA to a failed experiment.
‘Over a year ago, Gascón began a massive social experiment by redirecting prosecutorial resources away from enforcing the law while simultaneously ignoring large portions of the penal code,’ Siddall said. ‘The result is an emboldened criminal element that knows the DA will not hold criminals accountable. This experiment needs to end.’
ADDA vice president Eric Siddall (left) liked Gascón’s tenure as DA to a failed experiment, while ADDA president Michele Hanisee (right) said the vote reflects the fact that prosecutors wish to ‘restore public safety’
The ADDA’s vote came as Gascón works to do damage control after Fox News Digital released an audio recording that contained Tubbs’ damning comments.
Tubbs was 17 when she committed the assault.
Before she was sentenced, prosecutors had pushed for her to stay in a Los Angeles County Jail and be tried as an adult but Gascón declined to file a motion to move the case out of juvenile court, where it was filed because of Tubbs’ age at the time of offense.
The recording indicated that Tubbs also made crude and disparaging comments about the child she had abused, jokingly talking about her sexual attraction for the 10-year-old.
Tubbs also made crude and disparaging comments about the child she had abuse. She’s pictured in surveillance photos leaving the
The DA has admitted that Tubbs may have been given too lenient of a sentence after he refused to prosecute her as an adult for the crime that she committed as a male juvenile.
However, his critics said he knew about the recordings well before they were publicly released and that he didn’t take them seriously until they started making him look bad.
The deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, Shea Sanna, told the Times that Gascón’s aides have had access to the recordings since late January.
‘They demanded the recordings from me like three weeks ago,’ Sanna said.
Tubbs’ victim, now 18, hit out at Gascon for his handling of the case, which she described as ‘insulting.’
‘The things [Tubbs] did to me and made me do that day were beyond horrible for a 10-year-old girl to have to go through,’ the young woman said, referring to Tubbs as a male. ‘That man was very clear minded and old enough to know what he did that day was wrong and still did it anyway.
‘It’s something I struggle with and it’s insulting that this is all he was given as punishment. And I want something done about it.’
Gascón, who has been widely criticized as being soft on crime, on Friday backtracked on some of his most controversial policies, including not pursuing sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, and not prosecuting juveniles accused of serious offenses as adults.
Gascón’s sudden change of heart comes as he faces a second recall effort organized by his critics, who contend that his woke policies are to blame for Los Angeles’ rising crime rates.
In his statement announcing the policy changes, the progressive DA highlighted the case of Tubbs.
‘After her sentencing in our case, I became aware of extremely troubling statements she made about her case, the resolution of it and the young girl that she harmed, he said.
DA GEORGE GASCON’S FULL STATEMENT ON POLICY CHANGES
DA George Gascon on Friday backtracked on policies of not pursuing sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, and not prosecuting juveniles accused of serious offenses as adults
‘I want to address some policy changes that we are making in our office, which made the news earlier this week. I want to reaffirm my commitment to the core values I expressed when I took office. We do not believe that children should be tried as adults. We should treat kids like kids and give them every opportunity to grow and change. We also do not believe people should be sentenced to death in prison. People change and evolve – most often, for the better. For too long, our system operated without recognizing this fact, ignoring entirely the capacity people have for change. We must restore that underlying value into our justice system. While we maintain our commitment to these principles and will continue working to improve our system, there are some cases and situations that require a different response. We have made some adjustments to our policies to account for these exceptions.
Like every responsible office, we learn as we go, take feedback from the community, and make necessary adjustments based on our experiences and the complex nature of this work. That is the responsible way to govern. I have always been open to learning and growing in this work. When I started in policing 40 years ago, I believed that arresting and jailing people would bring us safety. However, after several decades of work, it was clear to me that we needed a more nuanced approach. The same is true now. While I remain committed to the core values of our policies, I have seen a small number of cases that presented real challenges. As a result, we are making minor adjustments to our policies on juveniles and LWOP to allow for exceptions in the most extraordinary of cases.
Specifically, we learned a lot from the Hannah Tubbs case about the need for a policy safety valve. Rather than the usual case where a child is arrested close in time to their crime, police arrested Ms. Tubbs at 26 for a crime she committed as a juvenile. Ms. Tubbs had several charges in other counties after the juvenile offense but never received any services which both her past behavior and that subsequent to her arrest demonstrates she clearly needs. After her sentencing in our case, I became aware of extremely troubling statements she made about her case, the resolution of it and the young girl that she harmed.
Unfortunately, our juvenile system in its current iteration does not provide adequate support to help someone at 26 with this level of challenges except through the adult system. While for most people several years of jail time is adequate, it may not be for Ms. Tubbs. If we knew about her disregard for the harm she caused we would have handled this case differently. The complex issues and facts of her particular case were unusual, and I should have treated them that way. This change in policy will allow us the space to do that moving forward.
We have now implemented policies to create a different pathway for outlier cases, while simultaneously creating protections to prevent these exceptions from becoming the rule. Any time a prosecutor wants to deviate from our core principles, they must put a request in writing. That request will then go to a committee, staffed by my most trusted advisors, who must evaluate the case and approve any requests to pursue an exception. This process ensures that only in the rarest of cases, where our system has failed, will we diverge from our principles.
We do not always get it right, as no one can, but we do believe that our fundamental beliefs are the right ones. Kids should be treated like kids. People should be given an opportunity to grow and change. Victims and survivors should be given support, and we should always provide every opportunity for all people in the criminal legal system to receive what they need to heal. We will continue to uphold these values.’