Contra Costa County prosecutors have indicted Sofia Ann-Buitron Drotts on seven felony charges after investigators said she had a sexual relationship with a teenage boy who had been under her care. The indictment, filed Wednesday in Contra Costa County Superior Court, makes the case public and sets up the next court step for the former behavioral health clinician.
The charges include two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, two counts of oral copulation of a minor under 18 years old, one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object, two counts of transmitting harmful material to a minor and one count of possession of child or youth pornography. Drotts worked at the John Davis Juvenile Detention Center in Martinez, where the boy was assigned to her as a client.
That detail matters because the relationship was not alleged to have started in a vacuum. John Doe was a detained minor receiving behavioral health services when he was assigned to Drotts, and prosecutors say the sexual affair began only after he got out of detention, running from April 1 through July 14 this year. In a case built around abuse of trust, that sequence is the point: a clinician responsible for a vulnerable youth is accused of turning a treatment relationship into criminal conduct.
Detectives with Concord police said they first learned of the affair from a supervisor in the Probation Department in the county, then investigated before Drotts was arrested on July 14. About a week later, the case was referred to the district attorney's office for filing, and the indictment followed Wednesday. What is not yet public is the proof behind each of the seven counts, or how prosecutors will match the allegations to the evidence they presented to the Superior Court.
If Drotts pleads not guilty, the case will move toward a preliminary hearing at the Superior Court. For now, the indictment marks the county's formal accusation that a former behavioral health clinician crossed the line between care and exploitation, and it leaves the court to sort out whether the charges can be sustained.
