Hannah Tubbs chief prosecutor Shea Sanna says George Gascon wants to be fired

The Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, removed from office this week, believes he was unfairly punished after speaking out against an awakened District Attorney George Gascon’s decision to try an underage trans woman convicted of child molestation.

Shi Sanna, 34, who was the lead lawyer in a highly publicized case that ended with Hannah Tubbs, 26, receiving two years in a juvenile facility, told The Post on Friday that his five-day suspension appeared to be retaliation. for their comments. about a convicted child molester.

“In my opinion, they are trying to fire me, building disciplinary measures against me,” Sanna said. “But there are no disciplinary actions in my work book for five years. So they create a paper trail to get me fired.”

“I said that Tubbs should be tried as an adult,” Sanna said of Tubbs’ sexual abuse of a 10-year-old girl.

Tubbs, who was 17 at the time of the crime, has been charged as a minor and may end up in a women’s correctional facility because she began to identify as a woman after her arrest – much to Sanna’s dismay.

“I don’t want an adult male sexual abuser to end up in a women’s juvenile detention facility,” Sanna said. “Tubbs has an extensive track record and is a career criminal. They hook the predator to the prey. They justify this by saying that he committed a sexual offense two weeks before his 18th birthday.

“He was on the run for seven or eight years. After being caught, he confessed to the crime. Gascon has a general policy that does not allow us to judge him as an adult.”

Sanna told The Post that he was suspended from his job on trumped-up charges. “To justify the suspension, they said that I had misidentified Tubbs’ gender at the Zoom meeting,” Senna said. But I didn’t speak at that meeting.

In addition, according to him, there is a problem associated with the publication on social networks.

“I called him James Tubbs in a tweet and they said it was a ‘dead name’ – even though he is James [Hannah’s male birth name] in every document outside of our case.

“I wrote that he is cheating the system and insincerely says that he is transgender. My lawyer explained that I was pointing out a problem and that was used as the basis for my punishment.”

Tiffini Blacknell, director of public relations for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, told The Post: “While we cannot comment on the specifics of the personnel issue, I can say that the actions taken by the Department were the result of findings drawn by the county’s independent fairness policy. .

“I can also say that the transgender community is often the target of violent attacks. They are also reluctant to report their attacks because of the way they are treated in the criminal justice system.”

Although Tubbs was sentenced to a juvenile correctional facility, she is currently being held in neighboring Kern County awaiting trial for a murder she allegedly committed as an adult.

“If he is found guilty of this murder, he will go to adult prison,” Sanna said. “If he is found not guilty, as he is now, he will go to a juvenile detention center on charges of sexual assault.”

Sanna fears the suspension is just the start of a targeted campaign against him by the district attorney.

“Other investigations against me are pending,” Sanna said. “We are talking about speeches to the press and political statements. They are fishing. I think these are all false accusations to get rid of me. I’m going to make public what is being done. If legal action is required, I will take these steps.”

According to Sanna, this issue is outside the scope of his specific case and reflects the work of the district attorney’s office as a whole.

“The DA’s office should be a government organization that represents the people,” Sanna said. “But the prosecutors are being silenced, and this violates our duty as prosecutors to the people.”

As for what the future looks like, Sanna said he plans to do his best to serve the people of Los Angeles County.

“I’ll be back on Wednesday and probably feel awkward,” he told The Post. “I will feel like I am wearing a microscope. I love my job. So I’m happy to be back. But trust me, I’m not happy to be suspended.”