Five year sentence for trans prostitute who killed client at San Francisco’s Crissy Field

October 31, 2025

The trans prostitute convicted of manslaughter after shooting dead his client at San Francisco’s Crissy Field was imprisoned for five years today after a rancorous sentencing where defense attorneys slandered the victim, branded prosecutors “racist”, and demanded his immediate release.

Leion Butler shot Hamza Walapupu in the head during a dispute that arose between the pair when Walapupu learned that Butler was a ‘transgender woman’ – in effect, a man – after a sex act had already been performed on him in the small hours of November 12 2023.

“This has been a very, very difficult matter,” said U.S. District Judge Susan Illston this morning.

“It was a horrible situation and a difficult trial and this is a difficult decision to make. I know everbody who came today is heartbroken in some way or another. I know the victims’ loss has been felt throughout the community that he was part of, and I’m sure more broadly than that, and particularly to his family.”

Judge Illston, deciding that government attorneys had overshot the mark in their request for a 13-year sentence, given Butler was acquitted of second-degree murder, imposed a five year term. She recommended that he be housed in a women’s prison.

The court heard a litany of Butler’s other crimes and his track record of inflicting serious violence and then claiming self defense.

In a memorandum filed ahead of today’s hearing, defense attorneys David Rizk and Shaffy Moeel described Hamza Walapupu as “a drunk, screaming, transphobic and violent older man,” while their client, who they claimed had the intelligence of a 10-year-old child, was “scared to death.”

“[He] endured extreme levels of physical and emotional violence and sexual abuse from birth,” they said of Butler, and he was “forced into sexual exploitation as a teenager through a combination of neglect, coercion and abuse.”

The defense derided efforts by prosecutors to highlight Butler’s juvenile rap sheet – which included assaults on security guards at multiple stores.

“[His] convictions from age 13 to 15 have little bearing on this case or [his] future; the contention by the government and probation officer that a homeless black child age 13 is “dangerous” because [he] has been forced out onto the street and must shoplift to survive is, it must be said, nothing short of racist and ignorant.”

They asked the court to impose, in essence, a time-served sentence that would see Butler free by Christmas.

If their client was imprisoned, insisted Rizk and Moeel, then he must be housed in a cell with biological women – even though he boasted of his penis in explicit escort ads.

“President Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice have promised that they will punish [Leion] well beyond the bounds of the law if [he] is committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, by denying [his] hormones medication and housing [him] in a men’s prison,” they said.

“Butler has a pattern not only of engaging in violent conduct…but also engaging in violent conduct and then claiming self-defense,” wrote prosecutors Kelsey Davidson and George Hageman in their sentencing memo.

“[His] choice to bring a gun that night was a deliberate escalation of violence that was motivated by revenge. And not surprisingly, [his] victims have escalated from uninjured, to moderately injured, to severely injured, to dead.”

Prosecutors told the court that, ten days before the murder, Butler had bought a gun and ammunition.

It appears that an already unstable and violence-prone Butler had been angry with another man – from whom he believed he had contracted HIV – and wanted to harm him.

“There is a strong inference that Butler obtained the gun to enact [his] revenge on J and commit a different murder that night,” Davidson and Hageman wrote.

“[He] has claimed self-defense in [his] last three documented encounters with police – first, when she stabbed someone with a knife; second, when she sprayed bear spray at a crowded Pride event; and third, in the instance offense.”

Today in courtroom one of San Francisco federal courthouse a tearful Aziza Walupupu paid tribute to her brother’s friendliness and musical ability and told Judge Illston about the loss her family has suffered since they fled war in the Congo.

“I know you told us last time you went through some stuff in the past,” she told Butler. “We all went through some stuff also, but I pray one day for God to reach you and give you peace of mind.”

“As a Christian I would like to tell you: I forgive you,” she added.

“I’m deeply sorry for the victim’s family and for all the pain that I’ve caused them,” said Butler.

“My whole life, of who I am today a black trans person, I just though it wasn’t safe to call the police,” he added.

Judge Illston decided to impose a five year sentence – a decision presaged at the start of the hearing when she told attorneys that was her tentative inclination.

“For [Mr] Butler [he] finds herself in a completely new situation, having clearly commited the acts of which [he’s] been convicted, and now facing an entirely difficult and strange, in many ways hostile environment. So it’s a difficult situation but I think a prison sentence is required – I think [he] needs to be sent to prison for this offense.”

“I do think the government has inadequately considered what [he] has been convicted of – manslaughter, not second-degree murder.”

In her remarks the judge, in common with attorneys and probation officials, imprecisely referred to the defendant as a woman.

Illston recommended that the Bureau of Prisons house Butler in a women’s facility and ordered that they provide her with hormone treatments.

“One of the reasons that I’ve imposed a 60-month sentence,” explained Illston, “is because the defendant has both physical and psychiatric conditions that are going to make prison particularly taxing both for [him] and the prison authorities and I do order that the Bureau of Prisons take into account [Mr] Butler’s physical and psychiatric diagnoses. One of those diagnoses is gender dysphoria which requires that [he] is treated.”

“Hormone therapy must continue.”