Rudy Paz is a 25-year-old Los Angeles man who prosecutors accuse of molesting children as young as 4 for years, but they don't have any evidence of him continuing the abuse after his 18th birthday. So, he might face juvenile punishment despite being an adult.
That's what happened to Hannah Tubbs, a 26-year-old child molester and convicted killer whose light sentence sought under Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon's direction didn't include the requirement he register as a sex offender.
Paz's victims had been "groomed" 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.
"Were this case in any other county, I'm sure it would already be up 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 the parameters are that they would be considering. It's not anywhere to be found."
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After stirring outrage with his office's handling of the Tubbs case, Gascon rescinded his blanket policy against transferring any juvenile cases to adult court and instead created a panel of handpicked allies, many of them former public defenders, to review certain high-profile cases and determine what to do, Cady said.
The catch with that is the panel operates outside public view and ignores state law that lists the criteria prosecutors and judges should consider when deciding whether to try a juvenile as an adult.
"His policies are an epic failure, but the bigger picture to me is how his policies lack transparency," Cady said. "And so the public doesn’t really understand what they mean. And he does that, I think, deliberately, in an attempt to sort of hide what he’s actually doing."
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And there's precedent for the victims' fears. Hannah Tubbs, also known as James Tubbs, was sentenced Thursday for beating his friend to death with a rock in a fight over $100. Tubbs spent years in adult jails in multiple states when Los Angeles authorities arrested him in 2021 for the 2014 sex assault of a little girl in a Denny's bathroom.
Because the crime happened weeks before Tubbs' 18th birthday, Gascon's office prosecuted him as a juvenile.
Once in Los Angeles custody, Tubbs began to identify as female, telling his father to call him "Hannah" in jailhouse phone calls in which he mocked his child victim and the lenient punishment he expected to face. With this new gender identity, the child molester, who targeted young girls, sought to be housed in a female juvenile jail.
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A deputy district attorney who blew the whistle on Tubbs' claims was suspended five days without pay for "misgendering" and "deadnaming" him despite evidence Tubbs' new gender identity was a ruse.
Gascon's office also played a role in the early release of Andrew Cachu, a convicted killer who served just six years of a 50-year prison sentence. Cachu walked free last year after the DA's office declined to present evidence at a hearing to determine whether he should remain in custody after aging out of the juvenile detention facility when he turned 25, Fox News Digital reported at the time.
Only the most severe juvenile crimes are eligible to transfer to adult court, Cady said, including murder and child molestation.
"There are multiple counts, it went on for a long time, [but] originally, it would appear as though the DA's office did not intend to even think about sending this up to adult criminal court," Cady said of the Paz case. "And that has changed. Now, apparently they're at least considering it."
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 provisional transfer motion was filed in the juvenile court at the time the case was filed, pending a final decision on seeking transfer," a spokesperson said. "LADA has established protocols for making appropriate determinations on seeking transfer, and the decision in this case is advancing through those protocols. A final decision on transfer is still pending."
Paz is being held without bail. He's due back in court Dec. 18.
