Former behavioral health clinician Sofia Ann-Buitron Drotts, 26, has been charged with seven felonies after prosecutors say she groomed a teenage boy while treating him in juvenile hall and later raped him after his release.
Drotts, of San Francisco, was arrested July 14 and has since been released, according to officials. Prosecutors said Drotts was assigned to the 17-year-old boy at John Davis Juvenile Detention Center in Martinez, then continued contact after he was released on probation.
When the counselor first began working with the teenager, he was 14 and she was 24. “We had conversations about where he was mentally, and we trusted her,” the teenager’s mother said.
The claim alleges the counselor crossed professional boundaries and drew the teenager into increasingly personal and romantic conversations while he remained in custody. “This woman used my child’s most vulnerable moments to groom and make him believe she was his girlfriend,” his mother said.
The complaint says Drotts began grooming the teen in 2024, when he was 14 or 15, and continued after he left juvenile hall.
The teenager was released from juvenile hall in April but remained 17 years old and under the supervision of the Contra Costa County Probation Department, according to the claim. Attorneys allege the former employee continued seeing him under the guise of therapy and then began having sexual contact with him.
She also allegedly encouraged him to miss school and ignore curfew, eventually staying at her San Francisco home.
Civil rights attorney John Burris, who is representing the family, said the counselor exploited the teenager she had been assigned to help. “The reason he was there was having emotional and mental problems, and her job was to help solve those problems, to rehabilitate him, to teach him and understand that, and she did just the opposite,” Burris said.
“The therapist’s conduct is deeply offensive. Instead of receiving rehabilitative health care services, (the juvenile) was allegedly groomed for the therapist’s personal sexual gratification through predatory tactics. This conduct violates every moral, legal, and professional standard meant to protect vulnerable clients like (the juvenile) from professionals who exploit positions of trust for personal gain.
District Attorney Diana Becton’s office announced Monday that Sofia Ann-Buitron Drotts is facing a seven-count felony complaint. Drotts is charged with two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, two counts of oral copulation of a person under 18 years of age, one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object, two counts of sending harmful matter to a minor and one count of possession of child or youth pornography.
After the victim was released from detention, he and Drotts engaged in a sexual relationship between April 1 and July 14.
Concord police said they began investigating after receiving a tip from the county Probation Department. Police later arrested the former employee after finding evidence supporting the allegations.
‘We trusted this professional with our son’s healing and well-being, and that trust was fundamentally shattered,’ the teen’s mother told the outlet.
‘Our focus now is entirely on our son’s recovery and protection.’
Drotts, a graduate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, was singled out for praise by the school in a 2022 Instagram post that identified her as a psychology major with certificates in criminal justice, gender and women studies, and chicano/a latino/a studies. ‘After graduation, she’s off to the Golden State to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Palo Alto University,’ read the post.
Drotts identified herself as a Spanish speaker and Chicago native on an author page for publication where she contributed a number of articles on college life.
In the viral moment that led to the investigation, the teenager broke the terms of his release in June by missing school and violating his curfew to meet with Drotts, according to the civil claim. During a search of the teen’s home by county probation and Concord police, investigators discovered evidence that eventually prompted the arrest. The allegations caught officials at the facility off guard, as no additional victims have been identified since the initial case came to light.
The victim’s family has filed a civil claim against the county, saying staff missed warning signs and failed to protect him.
Attorney Burris said in a news release that “Whatever protocols were in place to monitor young probationary employees did not work, and as a consequence of this, my young man was vulnerable to her conduct.”
Drotts is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday, July 29.