Rudy Paz is a 25-year-old Los Angeles man who prosecutors accuse of molesting children as young as 4 for years, but they have no evidence he continued the abuse past his 18th birthday.
So, he may face a juvenile sentence even as an adult.
That’s what happened to Hannah Tubbs, a 26-year-old child molester and convicted murderer who was given a lenient sentence under Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon’s order not to require her to register as a sex offender.
Paz’s victims had been “set up” for years, according to an attorney for two of their families, Kathleen Cady, and they came forward only recently, leading to his arrest as an adult.
“If this case had been in any other county, I’m sure it would have been tried in adult criminal court,” Cady told Fox News Digital. “But in LA County, it’s not. We don’t know why. And we don’t know what parameters they will consider. It cannot be found anywhere.”
After drawing ire over his office’s handling of the Tubbs case, Gascon reversed his blanket policy of transferring any juvenile cases to adult court and instead created a hand-picked panel of associates, mostly former public defenders, to review certain high-profile cases and decide what to do, said Cady.
Hannah Tubbs, when she was booked as James Tubbs, in November 2021.
The catch with that is that the panel operates out of public view and ignores state law that lists criteria that prosecutors and judges must consider when deciding whether to try a teenager as an adult.
“The policy is an epic failure, but the bigger picture to me is how the policy lacks transparency,” Cady said. “So people don’t really understand what they mean. And he did that, I think, on purpose, in an attempt to hide what he was really doing.”
And there is precedent for victim fear. Hannah Tubbs, also known as James Tubbs, was sentenced Thursday for beating her friend to death with a rock in a fight over $100. Tubbs spent years in adult prisons in several states when Los Angeles authorities arrested him in 2021 for the 2014 sexual assault of a little girl in a Denny’s bathroom.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon. MediaNews Group via Getty Images
Because the crime occurred weeks before Tubbs’ 18th birthday, Gascon’s office charged him as a juvenile.
While in Los Angeles custody, Tubbs began identifying as female, telling her father to call her “Hannah” in a prison phone call in which he mocked her son’s victimization and the light sentence she expected to face. With this new gender identity, child molesters, who target young girls, seek placement in female juvenile prisons.
A deputy district attorney who blew the whistle on Tubbs’ claims has been suspended five days without pay for “misgendering” her and “leaving out her name” even though evidence of Tubbs’ new gender identity was a hoax.
Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Shea Senna. Fox News
Gascon’s office also played a role in the early release of Andrew Cachu, a convicted murderer who had only served six years of a 50-year sentence. Cachu was released last year after the DA’s office refused to present evidence at a hearing to determine whether he should remain in custody after aging out of a juvenile detention facility when he turns 25, Fox News Digital reported at the time.
Only the most serious juvenile crimes qualify for transfer to adult court, Cady said, including murder and child molestation.
“There are some numbers, it’s been going on for a long time, [but] originally, it looked as if the DA’s office was not planning to send this matter to adult criminal court,” Cady said of the Paz case. “And that has changed. Now, it seems they are at least considering it.”
A transgender woman who bragged about her light sentence in a child molestation rap case has now been charged with murder in connection with a 2019 robbery, authorities said Tuesday. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Gascon’s office told Fox News Digital a decision on whether to transfer the case to adult court had not been reached as of Thursday.
“A temporary transfer motion was filed in juvenile court at the time the case was filed, pending a final decision on the transfer,” a spokesperson said. “LADA has established a protocol to make the appropriate determination to obtain a transfer, and the decision in this case is proceeding through that protocol. The final decision on the transfer is still pending.”
Paz is being held without bail. He is due back in court Dec. 18.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
