A County Therapist Had Unsupervised Access to a Boy in Juvenile Hall. Prosecutors Say She Used It.
Sofia Ann-Buitron Drotts, 26, of San Francisco was a temporary Behavioral Health Clinician employed by Contra Costa Health, the county agency that provides mental-health care inside John A. Davis Juvenile Hall in Martinez. Beginning in 2024, county records and court filings show, she was assigned as the therapist for a boy incarcerated there at age 14 or 15, on an approximately two-year term. On July 27, 2026, Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton (D) charged her with seven felony counts, alleging she sexually abused that boy. She has not yet entered a plea, and is presumed innocent unless and until a court says otherwise.
The case, as laid out in the criminal complaint and a separate government tort claim filed the same day by the boy’s mother, is not only about one alleged predator. It is about a county hiring and supervision system that, according to the family’s claim, put a temporary 26-year-old clinician alone in a room with an incarcerated teenager, embedded her in the meetings that shaped his case, and then kept her assigned to him for more than three months after his release — while at least four different probation officers rotated through his file.
This piece focuses on what the documents show broke down institutionally — who hired her, who supervised her, and who is now accountable for the gap — rather than the specific alleged conduct itself.
- Seven felony counts filed by DA Diana Becton's office against a former temporary county clinician accused of sexually abusing a boy she treated inside juvenile hall — Contra Costa County press release, July 27, 2026
- 4+ probation officers rotated through the same case during the months the family's civil claim covers, the claim alleges — Attorney John Burris's government tort claim
- $100,000+ the jurisdictional damages threshold stated in the family's tort claim against the county and the state — Patch
Drotts was not a Probation Department employee. She worked for Contra Costa Health (CCH), the county health services agency contracted to provide medical and mental-health care inside the Contra Costa County Probation Department’s John A. Davis Juvenile Hall, at 202 Glacier Drive in Martinez. Her title — Behavioral Health Clinician — was temporary, a status the county’s own public statements and reporting have repeatedly confirmed. She was assigned, beginning in 2024, as the therapist for a boy referred to in filings only as “John Doe,” then 14 or 15 years old, who was serving an approximately two-year term at the facility.
Beyond one-on-one therapy sessions, the family’s civil claim alleges Drotts also sat in on the facility’s “wraparound care meetings” — multi-disciplinary sessions where clinicians and probation staff discuss a detained minor’s treatment and probation status together. It was that dual role, participating in both his therapy and the meetings that shaped his case status, that the claim alleges gave her the access and influence at the center of this case.
“We trusted these professionals with our son's healing, and that trust was betrayed and fundamentally shattered.”
Sage Moala · the boy's mother · government tort claim, July 27, 2026
The boy was released on probation on April 3, 2026. According to the criminal complaint, Drotts continued as his assigned therapist through CCH after his release — and prosecutors allege that from April 1 through July 14, 2026, that continued clinical relationship became a sexual one. The family’s civil claim, filed by civil-rights attorney John Burris, is more specific about the alleged conduct: it says Drotts conducted purported “therapy sessions” inside her personal vehicle, transported the teen alone to public places, let him stay overnight at her San Francisco home without his parents’ consent, and encouraged him to skip school and violate curfew. The claim states his assigned probation officer changed at least four times during this same window — diffusing, it argues, any single point of accountability for noticing what was happening.
Burris frames the alleged conduct as a betrayal of the therapeutic relationship itself, not an incidental crime that happened to involve a therapist:
“Instead of receiving rehabilitative health care services, Doe was allegedly groomed for the therapist's personal sexual gratification through predatory tactics.”
John Burris · attorney for the family · government tort claim, July 27, 2026
The allegations did not surface through a supervisor catching a red flag inside CCH or Probation. In June 2026, Concord Police searched the teen’s residence — reportedly without a warrant — briefly detained him, and released him without charges. That encounter is what put the case in front of a probation supervisor, whose tip to Concord Police is what triggered the investigation. On July 14, 2026, Concord Police arrested Drotts; she was released after booking. The case was referred to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office roughly a week later, and on July 27, 2026, Becton’s office filed the felony complaint.
The county’s own release describes seven felony counts. Reporting that itemizes the specific charges — two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, two counts of oral copulation of a person under 18, one count of sexual penetration by foreign object, two counts of sending harmful matter to a minor, and one count of possession of child/youth pornography — sums to eight. We are flagging that discrepancy rather than guessing at which figure is correct; this piece treats the county’s own “seven felony counts” framing as authoritative.
The same day the DA’s office filed charges, the family filed its own government tort claim against Contra Costa County and the State of California, alleging negligent hiring, supervision, and retention of Drotts, and seeking damages “exceeding $100,000” — a jurisdictional threshold figure required to preserve the family’s right to sue, not a settlement amount. No settlement exists.
Contra Costa County prosecutors have filed seven felony charges against a former county juvenile hall therapist, accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy she treated as a client both inside the facility and after his release.
This is not the first time John A. Davis Juvenile Hall has faced allegations of this kind. An 11-plaintiff lawsuit covering conduct from 1998 to 2013 alleges “widespread sexual abuse and harassment” by guards and staff at the same facility, naming three former probation directors. Separately, in 2014, the Obama-era Department of Justice and Department of Education joined a legal action over the facility’s treatment of disabled youth held in solitary confinement — a different allegation, at the same juvenile hall, pointing to the same underlying theme: inadequate institutional oversight of a locked facility holding minors.
Burris argues the Drotts case fits that same pattern of unmonitored access going unchecked until it becomes a public case:
“Whatever protocols were in place to monitor young probationary employees did not work.”
John Burris · attorney for the family
Diana Becton (D), District Attorney — her office filed the seven-felony complaint against Drotts on July 27, 2026.
Tamara Gusman-Taylor, Probation Director — oversees John A. Davis Juvenile Hall; no public statement specific to this case has been reported from her office.
Dr. Grant Colfax, Director of Contra Costa Health — leads the agency that employed Drotts as a temporary clinician.
Diane Burgis (D), Chair of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors — the Board sets budget and policy for both Probation and CCH, the two agencies named in the family’s tort claim.
The family’s civil claim states plainly that “a team of County agents and supervisors failed to identify the red flags or supervise Drotts” — not a single rogue employee operating undetected, but an institutional gap spanning two agencies and a rotating cast of probation officers.
Contra Costa Health’s only public comment so far has been narrow and carefully worded:
“CCH is aware of the claim filed against the County involving a former temporary employee and allegations involving a minor.”
New details in the Contra Costa County juvenile hall therapist case: the criminal complaint, the family's tort claim, and the county's own limited statement, as the County, the DA's office, Concord PD, and Contra Costa Health all face questions about the case.
Drotts’s arraignment was scheduled for July 29, 2026. No plea and no outcome from that hearing had been publicly reported as of this piece’s publication on July 30. The criminal case remains pending, and full presumption of innocence applies to every allegation described above — nothing here has been proven in court. The family’s separate tort claim against the county and the state is a precursor to a possible civil lawsuit, not a resolved case; there has been no settlement, and no county or state agency has admitted wrongdoing.
What is already documented, independent of how the criminal case resolves, is the structure that put a temporary clinician alone with an incarcerated teenager, kept her assigned to him for months after release, and let at least four different probation officers pass through his file without anyone flagging the relationship — until a warrantless police search, not an internal review, is what brought it to light.
Sofia Ann-Buitron Drotts is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent. What is not in dispute is that Contra Costa County put a temporary clinician alone with a detained minor, kept her on his case for months after release, cycled at least four probation officers through his file, and only learned of the alleged relationship because local police happened to search his home. This juvenile hall has faced institutional-oversight allegations before. The county has not yet said what, if anything, is changing.
