26-Year-Old Transgender Child Molester To Serve In Juvenile Facility
Hannah Tubbs, A transgender California inmate convicted of molesting a child, has been charged with murder.
Tubbs was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday. The Kern County charge comes after authorities recently charged Tubbs in connection to a 2019 robbery.
An arraignment is set for Tuesday afternoon. Tubbs is being held on a $1 million bond.
Tubbs became the center of controversy earlier this year after pleading guilty to a 2014 assault on a 10-year-old girl inside a Denny’s restaurant bathroom when the then-suspect was just weeks from turning 18. Prosecutors said Tubbs grabbed the girl by the throat, locked her in a stall, and put her hand down the girl’s pants.
At the time of the assault, the suspect chose to identify as a male named James Edward Tubbs who was just two weeks shy of his 18th birthday. When authorities arrested Tubbs eight years after the crime, the suspect, who has since been convicted of child molestation, began identifying as a woman, according to prosecutors. Tubbs pleaded guilty to the 2014 assault last month.
Tubbs was sentenced to two years at a juvenile facility because Gascon’s office refused to transfer the case to adult court, adhering to one of the progressive prosecutor’s day-one directives barring “children” from being tried as adults. Though convicted, Tubbs could serve as little as six months under California law and may not even be required to register as a sex offender.
“Tubbs had a very lengthy criminal record before George Gascón allowed Tubbs to be sentenced to minimal time in a juvenile facility, which included arrests and convictions for murder, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, domestic violence, and even a prior sexual assault of a 4-yr-old girl,” Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami said.
A spokesman for Gascon’s office previously said that Los Angeles officials will be notified if Tubbs is released from custody in Kern County.
“District Attorney George Gascón is committed to protecting the public and especially our children. In this case, Hannah Tubbs continues to serve her Los Angeles County sentence, while being prosecuted on an unrelated robbery charge in Kern County,” Ricardo Santiago, a public information officer for the Das’s office said. “Her transfer was based on a 2019 warrant and approved by a court.”
“Judge Barrera’s hands were tied today – because the DA’s office failed to file a motion to transfer Tubbs to adult criminal court, which is where she rightly belongs,” Barger said. “Instead, we’re left with a 26-year-old individual sentenced to two years in a juvenile facility in isolation, separated by sight and sound from the other juveniles.”
Tubbs was later caught on a jailhouse phone call gloating about the case and bragging about not having to register as a sex offender.