Shea Sanna claims in his suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, that his troubles began after he reported "unethical practices" and resisted directives from Gascón's administration that he believed were unlawful. He claims issues arose after he challenged the handling of a high-profile case involving Hannah Tubbs, a transgender convicted sex offender.
The suit accuses Gascón and senior county officials of pressuring Sanna to suppress information related to Tubbs' case and of punishing him when he refused to comply. It lodges claims for whistleblower retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and seeks unquantified damages for emotional distress, professional harm and economic loss.
Sanna — who was hired as a deputy district attorney in 2018 and says he maintained an "impeccable personnel record, with no disciplinary actions and consistently excellent performance reviews from his supervisors" for his first four years on the job — says he has faced retaliation for "misgendering Tubbs." Throughout his complaint, he refers to her by the name James Tubbs and uses male pronouns rather than the pronouns she uses.
In 2014, just before Tubbs turned 18, according to the suit, she sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in the bathroom of a Denny's in Palmdale, a city in northern Los Angeles County.
"Because the case garnered extensive media coverage critical of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón's progressive policies, Gascón prevented Sanna from presenting relevant evidence to the court and removed him from the case," the suit claims.
According to the suit, Tubbs had a criminal record, is a suspect in two other sexual assault cases involving children in public restrooms and was also charged in May 2022 with robbery and murder.
"For years, Tubbs eluded law enforcement, despite having warrants issued for his arrest in three states," Sanna's suit says, but in 2019, Tubbs was arrested in Idaho and brought back to California to stand trial for the 2014 sexual assault in Palmdale. The deputy district attorney who reviewed Tubbs' record indicated in a filing that the case should be transferred to adult court, Sanna states.
Then, in November 2020, Gascón was elected Los Angeles County district attorney.
Sanna describes Gascón, who had previously served as district attorney in San Francisco, as a "former police officer with no litigation experience." He adds, "Gascón ran on a progressive platform that included policies such as eliminating cash bail, de-emphasizing incarceration for those convicted of theft and drug related crimes, and dramatically decreasing incarceration rates by expunging past convictions."
Gascón implemented a new policy in cases involving minors that required prosecutors to file the lowest possible criminal code section that corresponded with the alleged conduct and prevented the filing of motions to transfer youth to the adult court system, according to the complaint.
In January 2021, Head Deputy District Attorney Shawn Randolph sought an exception to the new policy for the Tubbs case, given the circumstances, Sanna says, adding that he was told Randolph could not prosecute the now 25-year-old Tubbs as an adult.
In October 2021, Sanna says, he was assigned to the Tubbs case, and in November 2021, Tubbs was convicted of the 2014 sexual assault. According to Sanna, it was also at about that time that Tubbs' attorney informed him that Tubbs was transgender and identified as a woman.
According to Sanna, he reviewed recordings of a November 2021 call Tubbs made from jail to her father in which she outlined a plan to say she was transgender in order to obtain favorable housing in a women's juvenile facility.
Months later, Sanna says, he fought with another Gascón adviser over his intention to request that Tubbs serve a two-year sentence in county jail rather than in a youth facility. According to the complaint, he was told not to make that request to the court. He adds that Gascón's advisers pressured him to remain silent during the hearing and not to present Tubbs' jail call recordings as evidence.
The Los Angeles County Probation Department subsequently petitioned the court to house Tubbs in the county jail, but a judge denied the request finding that the L.A. County District Attorney's Office had not sought to transfer the case to adult criminal court.
"When Sanna attempted to play Tubbs' jail calls in open court," the suit states, "the court prevented him from doing so, reasoning that the calls were only relevant if it had the power to send Tubbs to county jail, which it had already concluded that it did not because LADA had failed to transfer the case."
The court instead sentenced Tubbs to two years in a juvenile facility, according to the complaint.
Days later, Sanna says, he emailed the members of Tubbs' rehabilitation team with the recordings of Tubbs' jail calls attached.
He adds, "The day after Sanna forwarded the recordings, the Gascón administration retaliated against him and removed him from the Tubbs case."
The suit notes that in 2023, Tubbs pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter related to a 2019 death and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
According to Sanna, after his removal from the Tubbs case, he's been the target of sham investigations, suspensions and other retaliatory actions orchestrated by Gascón's office.
"Gascón and his inner circle … knew that Sanna had played a role in Tubbs being charged with murder," the suit states. "Gascón was livid. Why? Because it furthered the narrative that Gascón's policies were ineffective and supported Sanna's position that Tubbs was a dangerous individual that should have been tried as an adult initially."
In June 2023, Sanna sat for an interview with former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy on his Fox News Channel show "Sunday Night in America" and criticized Gascón's policies.
Later that same month, he says, a complaint was filed against him with the County Equity Oversight Panel alleging "inappropriate conduct towards others and discrimination." Following an investigation, the matter was dismissed, but he calls it just one of many unfounded complaints made against him.
Sanna claims a management-level prosecutor in the district attorney's office later warned him that the Gascón administration is "still coming after you."
By October 2023, according to the suit, Gascón had Sanna demoted by transferring him to a remote office in Santa Clarita, a city north of Los Angeles. He says he was also passed over for promotion while others with worse performance evaluations and lower test scores were given career boosts.
He was also told by his union representative in a text message that the Gascón administration is setting him up for a discharge, Sanna says.
"As of the filing of this complaint, Sanna anticipates that Gascón will terminate him any day," the suit says. "Since attracting Gascón's ire, Sanna's employee file has been unjustly tarnished by a disciplinary record based on false allegations and frivolous complaints."
Anthony Fusaro of Dhillon Law Group Inc., who represents Sanna, said his client did nothing but seek to uphold his legal and ethical obligations.
"Yet because this evidence conflicted with D.A. Gascon's recently enacted policies and public statements, Gascon sought to suppress it," Fusaro said in a written statement. "When Mr. Sanna informed his supervisors and the public of Gascon's suppression efforts, Gascon responded with a relentless retaliation campaign against Mr. Sanna that persists to this day."
Representatives for Gascón and the county declined requests for comment on the litigation.
Shea Sanna is represented by John-Paul S. Deol, Jesse Franklin-Murdock and Anthony J. Fusaro Jr. of the Dhillon Law Group Inc.
Counsel information was not immediately available for Gascón and Los Angeles County.
The case is Shea Sanna v. County of Los Angeles et al., case number not available, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.
--Editing by Kristen Becker.
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