Tubbs 2.0? Will Gascon Charge Alleged Serial Molester as an Adult?

Rudy Paz is now 25 years old and he is facing a slew of child molestation charges, including allegations he molested boys as young as four years old.

But Rudy Paz – if found guilty –  may see his sentence capped at two years and never have to register as a sex offender.

Why? Because he’s from Los Angeles and George Gascon is the county’s District Attorney.

Paz has been arrested, but Gascon’s office has yet to decide whether or not to charge him as an adult because his alleged molestation spree – at least the part he is facing charges on – purportedly ended a few weeks before his 18^th birthday, opening up the possibility he will be charged as a juvenile.

If this scenario sounds familiar, it should.  James Tubbs, who claimed trans status and demanded to be called “Hannah” – something the Globe will not do because neither we nor our readers are stupid enough, unlike Gascon, to not see the claim was an effort to game the justice system – after he was identified as the attacker of a young girl in restaurant bathroom in Palmdale.

Because Tubbs was 17 at the time of the brutal attack, Gascon charged him as a juvenile, despite the fact he came to his office’s attention after committing a crime in another state – Tubbs has a long criminal record in California and other western states.  Tubbs’s DNA was entered into the system and it came back as a match for the Palmdale attack on the 10-year-old girl.

Gascon at the time had a “blanket policy” of charging people who committed crimes as juveniles as juveniles, no matter the crime, no matter they were adults when arrested, no matter how to close to 18 they were – like Paz, Tubbs was just a few weeks short of 18 at the time of the attack – when they committed the crime. 

This policy led Tubbs to plead guilty and be sentenced to a youth correctional facility for two years.  And since he decided to call himself a girl and since Gascon’s office is both intellectually and morally bankrupt he could have served that time at a girl’s facility save for the fact that Kern County got him back after charging him in the death of Michael Clark in 2020.

Kern County – rightfully – put Tubbs in the men’s jail where he remained until he pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and robbery and witness intimidation in November.

Appropriately, his father, Edward Tubbs – to whom Tubbs was recorded bragging to about pulling the woke wool over Gascon’s eyes – pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of witness intimidation and of being an accessory after the fact alongside his son. 

Kathleen Cady, a former prosecutor who has come out of retirement to assist – pro bono – crime victims and their families, said there are significant worries Paz – sans the wig –  will get the same lenient treatment.

In a release through the LA Association of Deputy District Attorneys – essential the DDA’s union – https://thomas699.substack.com/p/a-good-government-union –  and a vehement opponent of Gascon – Cady wrote:

Paz sexually abused multiple young boys, the youngest of whom was only 4 years old. Each victim was abused over a period of several years. Paz “groomed” these young boys and then repeatedly committed every type of sex act against them. “Grooming” is the process a sexual predator uses to build an emotional connection to manipulate kids and gain their trust – to both accomplish the abuse, and to prevent the children from reporting the abuse. The children that Paz abused didn’t tell anyone what happened until several years after the molestation stopped. Because of that, Paz wasn’t arrested until he was 24. The last known time that Paz molested one of his victims was weeks before he turned 18. 

The key reason for the fear – besides Gascon’s egregious history – is that Gascon dropped his “blanket policy” and  instituted a “secret” internal system to look at the question of charging as a juvenile or an adult since the Tubbs firestorm.

Pre-Gascon, said Cady, the prosecutor handling the case would consult directly with the district attorney and others to decide whether or not to charge as an adult.  Now, the office has a committee of Gascon lackies making the decision behind closed doors.

Gascon does still file what’s called a “transfer” motion upon the arrest in these types of case to keep the door open a crack to the person being charged as an adult.  It is the committee that then decides whether to ask for a “transfer hearing” to actually move the person into the adult system.

That has reportedly happened exactly once.

A spokesperson for Gascon’s office said a decision has yet to be made.

“A provisional transfer motion was filed in the juvenile court at the time the case was filed, pending a final decision on seeking transfer. LADA has established protocols for making appropriate determinations on seeking transfer and the decision in this case is advancing through those protocols,” said the spokesperson.  “A final decision on transfer is still pending.”

Cady’s concerns remain, writing: 

Gascón was aware of the horrendous facts of the Tubbs’ case. Gascón knew a 10-year-old little girl was forcibly sexually assaulted in a public restroom when Tubbs was just weeks shy of age 18. He knew Tubbs was 26 years old when apprehended. He knew the juvenile system had near nothing to offer a now 26-year-old sexual predator by way of rehabilitation services because the juvenile system is designed to rehabilitate youth, not 26-year-old sophisticated predators. Gascón knew Tubbs was not remorseful. Gascón knew Tubbs was recorded on a jail call laughing about the light sentence in the juvenile system. Gascón did not listen to vociferous warnings from prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Office, who are experienced in juvenile crime, about keeping Tubbs in the juvenile system. Gascón still ordered that Tubbs stay in juvenile court.

The question now is why, given his professed revelations about the mishandling of the Tubbs case, is Gascón not moving forward on a transfer hearing for Paz? Does Gascón understand that the safety value he mentioned when he “adjusted” his policies after the Tubbs’ fiasco, demand that Paz be prosecuted in criminal court to protect the public? What is Gascón waiting for?

Cady said there are not set parameters for making a decision, that there is no even internal transparency to the process, and the people who serve on the committee are “his cadre of people who came over from the public defender’s office.”

Gascon’s opponents in the March 2024 primary election will – and are – pointing to this process as yet another reason why Gascon has to be voted out of office.

DA candidate Judge Debra Archuleta said (seemingly sadly) that she was barred from commenting on an existing case because she remains a sitting judge, even if on leave during the campaign.

Candidate Nathan Hochman has no such commentary encumbrances, though:

“This case is yet another example of how Gascon’s political agenda is interfering with what the District Attorney is supposed to do: enforce the law and keep the public safe,” Hochman said.  “A serial child molester with victims as young as 4 years old should be prosecuted in adult court, sentenced to prison and kept as far away as possible from other innocent children.”

It is not clear if and when Gascon’s office will make its decision.