Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Man Detained In Charlie Kirk Assassination Hit With Shocking New Charges

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

George Zinn was detained by police last Wednesday when he claimed to be the person who shot Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University. Police later said Zinn hindered the law enforcement response with his false claim and he admitted to doing so to allow the real shooter to get away. Now, Zinn is also facing charges related to posessinng child sex abuse material. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at Zinn, his history and the new allegations in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code CRIMEFIX at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/crimefixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Rich Schoenstein https://x.com/LawfulRichesProducer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Coup me. We don't know if it's him or not. The man who claimed responsibility for the murder of Charlie Kirk is now an even bigger legal trouble. I go through the new charges filed against George Zinn involving child pornography. and why he says he told the cops he shot Charlie Kirk. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy.

71-year-old George Zinn, he's on video telling police officers a week ago that he was the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University. It was just moments after the shooting. The scene was chaotic, as students, ran in fear after hearing a gunshot and seeing Charlie Kirk Kirk's staff grabbed him and rushed him to an SUV in the hope of saving his life, but it was simply too much and too late. Newly released documents shed light on how the initial apprehension of the first suspect impeded the Kirk's shooting investigation. A detective named Dutson was on duty working the event when he heard a single gunshot at about 12

20 p.m. As he makes his way through the crowd, an elderly man approaches him screaming, I shot him. Now shoot me. That man, we now know, was 71-year-old George Zinn, and he tells officers, he's the shooter. But when asked about the location of the firearm, Zinn reportedly said, I'm not going to tell you. Police escorted Zen to a patrol car at the back of the venue. Shoot me. What's that? We don't know if it's him or not.

Now here's another view of George Zen being detained. It was recorded by a witness and it's been circulating on social media. The guy that's a shot in. This is a guy that shot in? Zinn! Don't get him on! Don't get him on the face! Drag him!

Zinn was transported to the Utah Valley University Police Department for questioning. Now, before Detective Dutson could advise him of his rights, George Zinn asked for a lawyer, so they couldn't conduct an official interrogation. But the affidavit goes on to state, at that point, I advised George I did not think he was the one who did the shooting. But since he told me he wanted an attorney, I could not talk to him. At that point, he advised, I am already going to be in trouble for saying I shot him, even if I did not. I did not ask him any more questions at that point.

George stated on his own that he did not shoot the individual. He stated he did it to draw attention from the real shooter. Now, Zin's arrest, it went viral on social media, and there were mixed reactions about whether or not he was actually the shooter. stage. And I turn and look, and they were arresting a guy by the name of George Zim. Yeah, I know the guy. I don't think he did it. I think they arrested the wrong guy. I think whoever did it was a good shooter, a sharp shooter. It was one shot right directly to the heart. And we need to find out who did this. I think there should be a research completely done. The took place hours, maybe a day before anything went on. Who could be there and pull that trigger and do it. And I don't think it was George Sim. He was poor, broke. He maybe was on medication. a little bit of looneyboot, maybe a perfect person to pick and say that did it, but I don't think he did it at all? So at this point, but did you see him taken into custody? Did you see him with any kind of thing in his hand, any device in his hand or anything like that? Yeah, I saw when they, when they actually put the hand crossed behind his back. I cover a lot of really scary crime

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to a nearby hospital for an undisclosed medical condition. At the initial press conference, Utah, the Department of Public Safety Commissioner, Bo Mason, announced Zinn's arrest and subsequent release. During the investigative process, we located a couple of persons of interest. We interviewed those individuals, and after releasing them and after clearing them with being suspects, they face scrutiny. They face threats. We ask the public to be patient with the investigative process. These individuals were not suspects. They were people of interest.

We ask that you do not impose into those people and that investigated process. They don't deserve that harassment for being subject to that. But newly released documents now reveal that Zinn was at the hospital, and he admits to the FBI, quote, he was glad, he said he shot the individual so the real suspect could get away. The affidavit provides more information on the comments that Zinn made during the transport. During this time, George made statements to the officer that he was glad he said he shot the individual so the real suspect could get away. He also stated to officers that he wanted to be a martyr for the person who was shot. FBI investigators and Utah State investigators conducted

an interview with Zinn where he openly admitted that he was not the shooter. In Utah, that's a crime, so authorities had enough to book Zinn immediately into the Utah County Jail on suspicion of obstruction of justice after he was cleared from the hospital. But it doesn't stop there. Toward the end of the questioning, agents ask him if they can look through his phone and whether or not there would be anything illegal on it. What Zinn says next sparks a whole different investigation. The man sitting in the hospital bed confesses to using his phone to look at child sex abuse material.

This is all according to a probable cause affidavit. yes seriously i guess at least he was honest but that is incredibly disturbing the agents sat with zen and they looked through his phone contents and the affidavit is pretty graphic in nature so i'm just going to read portions of it the affidavit states the photos folder contained images of pre-pubescent female children around the age of five years old the children were dressed in underwear George told investigators that he was sexually aroused by children ranging in age from five to 12 years old. I observed many images of young female children posed in different positions often referred to as child erotica. One definition of child erotica is non-pornographic material relating to children that is used by individuals for sexual purposes or gratification.

The images almost always depict children posed in swimsuits. underwear or compromising positions. There are more than 20 images of child erotica content on George's cell phone in the images section. These images are copied and reused more than 50 times in separate conversations with different contacts and phone numbers. George is sending these images in over five conversations saying they are his daughters, asking people to perform sex acts to them and telling contacts he performs sex acts to them.

investigators seized Zinn's phone and Utah County Forensic Examiners downloaded it forensically to further review and investigate. On Monday, George Zinn was released from the Utah Valley Hospital and taken into custody. As of now, there is nothing suggesting that George Zinn and the real alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, are connected in any way. But this isn't Zinn's first rodeo. He's actually well known by Utah police as a political gadfly. He likes to hang around political events.

So there's no question as to why Zinn was at the first stop of Charlie Kirk's American comeback tour at UVU that day. A few months ago, I referenced this last night, Charlie posted to social media, when things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds, it's important to stay grounded. Turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends, and remember, Internet Fury is not real life. It's going to be okay. And he again said, when you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to commit violence. He said what we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have a reasonable agreement,

being able to have reasonable agreement where violence is not an option. Now again, to my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option. But through those words, we have a reminder that we can choose a different path. Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now. Not by pretending differences don't matter, but by embracing our differences and having

those hard conversations. I think we need more moral clarity right now I hear all the time that words are violence words are not violence violence violence is violence and there is one person responsible for what happened here and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon

and will be held accountable and yet all of us have an opportunity right now out to do something different. According to court records, Zinn has been arrested and charged numerous times over the past 20 years in Utah with misdemeanor crimes. Most notably, he was involved in the Salt Lake City Marathon where the then 59-year-old sent an email to the marketing director of the marathon asking, quote, I was wondering if you needed anybody to help place bombs near the finish line on Saturday. Mind you, this was the same week as the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people

and injured 170, so staff took these allegations very seriously. Luckily, nothing happened at the event, but the email was reported in Zinn faced a second-degree felony charge, threat of terrorism. In 2019, Zinn was also one of eight people arrested at a Utah Inland Port Authority Board meeting. Zin and other protesters became rowdy, pushing and shoving. According to the arrest report, Zin became angry and pushed some of the protesters because he thought they were blocking a Utah Transit authority bus for that incident zen faced charges of disorderly conduct and failure to disperse but these current charges they're a whole new ballgame so to discuss all of this i'd like to bring in rich showinstein he is a trial attorney and he's been following this case very closely so rich

tell me if you would just your reaction to this george zen you know being accused formally now he's been charged with trying to interfere in this investigation into the shooting, the murder of Charlie Kirk, by saying, hey, I'm the guy. I'm the shooter. So I think the actual reaction I gave you yesterday when you asked me if I could come on was geez Louise. Right, right. And that is sort of my reaction because as horrible as this underlying crime is the shooting itself, which is obviously a terrible, terrible crime. The idea that some bystander in the crowd would interfere with police, you know, actively doing their job, not just to investigate a crime, but to keep a crowd of

college students and other people safe. It's unfathomable to me that somebody would do that. I can't, I can't even begin to understand the thinking behind interferingly. that. Yeah. And the thinking was, according to what the police are saying in the affidavit, was that the guy was saying, I want to be a murder for this guy. I wanted to help him get away. So he was actively trying to draw police attention to himself. At the time, they have no clue, absolutely no clue where this shot came from other than it came from probably one direction. They don't know that there's somebody up on a roof, even though they may have been thinking it. They've just got somebody saying, hey, look at me, look at me. I'm your guy. And he readily admits to the police that he was trying to be a distraction. He was aiding and abetting, essentially somebody getting away that they don't believe he even knew. I find that so offensive, not just because he's aiding and abetting someone who just committed a horrible crime.

But really, I go back to this idea. He's putting everybody at risk. You know, at that moment, I don't think people knew exactly who was doing the shooting. You didn't know how many there were. You didn't know if there was going to be more shooting. You didn't know who the targets were. So if you're interfering with law enforcement in a situation like that, you are really putting people at risk and not just the people you don't like.

Your friends and neighbors, your fellow citizens, you are putting at risk. undoubtedly. I mean, there's no doubt about that. I want to move on now to peeling back the onion on the next layer of this ridiculous nonsense. And that is the fact that George Zinn, when he's in police custody, according to the officers, they say, hey, we need to look at your phone. Do you have anything illegal on there? And he says, well, in fact, yes, I do. I have photographs of kids on there between the ages of five and 12. various states of undress. I'm paraphrasing what he said. But he says, yeah, you're going to find photos of young girls on my phone. And I try to set up meetings and hang out with them. And I'm sexually aroused by young girls. And so he says, you're going to find this on my phone. And lo and behold, they open up his phone and they say that's what they find. And he's deleted them because he knows that it's wrong according to the affidavit. So, oh my God, Rich. I mean, this guy has a history, but now we're getting like way into his mind and we're seeing

exactly what potentially is going on with this guy. Lots of problems. Right. And that maybe answers some of the questions about what kind of guy would do something like this. It's this kind of person who is fundamentally disturbed already and is participating in child pornography, which is another thing I find deeply offensive. no matter where in the supply chain you sit in the production, distribution, or use of that material. So it's bad. And, you know, it's going to get investigated pretty fully now. Yeah, definitely.

And they downloaded his phone. And apparently he said that he sends this stuff to a lot of contacts. He's tried to arrange meetings with people, according to this paperwork. He's admitted to trying to arrange meetings with people for. sex with young people claimed in some points that these were his kids or whatever i don't i'm not sure that they are it sounds like they probably aren't but there's a whole other thing that could blow up out of this a ring possibly people sharing this stuff people trying to arrange meetings for sex with kids so the possibilities about where this guy's phone and what he did

and where it will lead are really endless. Right. It's like a tree with all of these branches potentially going out. You know, there's a branch to where did he get the pornography if it's on his phone? Who distributed it? Who made it? There's a branch to, is he involved with trafficking or attempting to traffic minors for sex? So there's a branch there.

There could be other people involved in that. And law enforcement's going to go down every branch. Remember, because of what else he did, law enforcement is going to try to accuse him of everything they possibly can. They're going to go after this guy fully, and they're going to investigate. They're going to climb down every single branch of this tree and find whatever else they find. Let's talk now about how his name came up in the text messages between Tyler Rock. Robinson and Tyler Robinson's roommate right now the the sheriff put out a press release saying we have no evidence that George then is connected to Tyler Robinson in any way or connected to this assassination but it is interesting you know in this text exchange between Tyler Robinson and his roommate his partner he you know the partner says you know that was you and I thought they had somebody in custody or whatever and Tyler's like yeah it was just some old guy but yeah it was me So it did work to some degree because when this story was first unfolding, people thought, oh, wow, they got the shooter really fast.

They tackled this older man who could be the shooter. So it did really dampen potentially the police response in those first minutes because they thought they had a suspect potentially in custody. Right. I remember that. I remember them saying or at least being chatter on. the internet, they got the guy very quickly. And I think there was maybe even video of law enforcement tackling this guy or picking him up, if I remember. And that definitely could have delayed the pursuit of the actual suspect. And when you think about it, because what we've heard is that Tyler Robinson was going to make an effort to come back and cover up the gun or some other way cover up. This individual could have contributed to an actual suspect getting away. It could have had dire consequences.

And from what we've seen, and by the way, all of these people, I always should say, they're presumed innocent, right? They're innocent until proven guilty. I don't want to, I don't want to prejudge any of them. I'm just going based on the evidence that we're hearing about. We don't see a real connection between the two of them, but obviously that's going to be investigated yeah they're definitely going to investigate that and let's talk a little bit about that because they are investigating whether or not tyler robinson had help or encouragement you know he was on a group chat on discord with more than 20 people the fbi director says and they're running down they claim all of those people uh who was he talking to his mom saying

telling the cops you know over the last year so he had started leading more politically to the left and becoming more pro-gay, pro-trans rights, things of that nature. This is all in the paperwork that they filed with the court. You know, having those qualities doesn't mean necessarily, that doesn't mean you're going to go out and kill somebody, but this guy is accused of going out and killing somebody. So something has gone on over the last year, it sounds like, that has changed Tyler Robinson.

Right. So that's a whole, that's an electronic tree. That is a discord tree. And they've got to go down every branch of that, too, both to find out if he conveyed information over discord that would be useful in prosecuting him. And we've already seen, I think, some of that. But also to find out if there was any information coming in that might have aided or abetted or encouraged him to commit this crime. So they have to look down all of those branches. And then certainly to find out if anybody else was involved in. if there are any other potential defendants out there. And all of that is being thoroughly investigated.

I have no doubt. Yeah, it definitely is. And we'll see if there are any connections between Tyler Robinson and groups or even this George Zinn, I doubt there are because George Zinn's been living up in the Salt Lake area. You know, Tyler Robinson, 22-year-old guy down in the St. George area, three and a half hour south. I doubt there's a connection. You never know, though. With this case, you never know what could happen.

I do want to go back to George's in there, though, for a minute. Do you think more will come of this investigation just based on what we've read in that affidavit, Rich, the fact that this guy has all this stuff allegedly on his phone and he's been messaging people about it and sharing these photos? Yeah, there could be some, there definitely could be some meat here on the. the pornography part of this. And maybe that would be some good that would come out of this horrible, horrible situation. If it does lead to an investigation and it does lead to uncovering some sort of child pornography or trafficking ring or other illegal activity, I mean, I think all of that is horrible wherever you are in that supply chain. I think basically you are somewhat responsible for what is happening to the minors that are the subject of that kind of stuff.

And this does deserve to be probed by law enforcement. And if it leads to ferreting out some misconduct, I'm all for it. Most definitely. Well, this guy, he's got some big problems. He's been in trouble in the past. And now he's got some big, big problems because what he's accused to doing in both instances is really awful. So Rich Schoenstein, thank you so much as usual for your time and your expertise. I appreciate it.

Great to see you, Anjanet. Yeah, great to see you too. Zin is being held without bail as the investigation into him continues. Again, at this time, investigators say they have not found a connection between him and the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson. Tyler Robinson remains held without bail on an aggravated murder charge and also other charges and prosecutors say they are pursuing the death penalty against him. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Janette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.