Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Woman Posed as Homeschooled 14-Year-Old to Have Sex With Boy: Cops

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Tampa Police say Alyssa Zinger posed as a homeschooled, 14-year-old girl so she could have sex with a boy who was between 12 and 15 years old. The police chief calls Zinger a "predator" and has asked other victims to come forward. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy looks at other allegations involving Zinger in this episode of Crime Fix, a daily show about the top stories in crime.SPONSOR:If you’ve used Incognito mode in Google’s Chrome internet browser, you can find out if you have a claim in only a few clicks by visiting https://www.forthepeople.com/LCGoogleSee 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 & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. This is Alyssa Ann Zinger. She's 22, but police in Tampa say she posed as a 14-year-old girl so she could have sex with a boy around the same age. And the allegation only gets worse from there. After having sex with the boy, police say Zinger sent the boy's classmates a video of him having sex with another girl. Police say Zinger posed as a homeschooled teenage girl when she actually works in the bakery at a public store. According to police, she met that boy online. The investigation began back in October

after a teenage girl reported that Zinger had sent a video of her having sex with a boy to her classmates through Snapchat. Police say the boy told them Zinger appeared more mature than the age of 14 that she claimed to be. Tampa police say they believe there are more victims out there and they're asking that anyone with information about other victims call them. The chief said in a news release, quote, we encourage you to come forward. The Tampa Police Department will support you and ensure a predator like Zinger doesn't cause you or others additional harm. Right now, Zinger is free on bail, but more charges could be coming. I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Monday,

and this is Crime Fix, law and crime's rundown of the top stories for the day in the world of crime. Up next, a pastor in California allegedly told a 13-year-old girl in his congregation it was God's will that she have sex with him. 53-year-old Victor Manuel Hernandez Pineda is now behind bars in Contra Costa County. Hernandez Pineda is the pastor at a church in Richmond, California, north of Oakland. A church elder filed a report over the weekend saying his daughter had revealed Hernandez-Pineda sexually abused her when she was 13.

The victim, who's now 21, says the pastor would pretend to be a family member to take her out of school, then take her to a hotel. He now faces three counts of kidnapping and four counts of molesting a girl younger than 14. Right now, police are trying to determine if there are more victims out there. A man accused of killing his pregnant wife

and kidnapping their 10-month-old son was apparently found naked, not far from the baby's dead body. It all started on Thursday when the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office in Idaho was called out to a general store where a man was walking around the store naked. An ambulance took Jeremy Albert Best to a hospital, but he wasn't arrested and was eventually discharged. That night, police responded to a home near the Idaho-Wyoming state line where they found

Callie Jean Randall dead. When they realized baby Zeke was gone, they issued an Amber Alert. Then on Saturday, hunters spotted Best on the side of the road, once again naked. Police found the body of little Zeke in Best's truck. The baby's cause of death has not been released. Best is being held without bond, accused of murder. A federal prison inmate told the FBI that he stabbed former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin 22 times in honor of the Black Lives Matter movement. Court documents say John Terzak attacked Chauvin in the law library of the federal prison in Tucson on Black Friday as a show of solidarity with BLM. Terzak, who is doing federal time for being in the Mexican mafia,

said he'd been thinking of hurting Chauvin for more than a month because he was a high-profile prisoner. He's accused of stabbing Chauvin with a homemade shank. Chauvin is serving more than 20 years for the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day back in 2020. Chauvin is considered stable, but few other details about his condition are available. The federal prison in Tucson is a medium security facility. Visiting there has been halted since that attack. Terzak is no stranger to harming people. He claims to have murdered a man at a prison in California and ordered the murder of another man. He's charged with attempted murder and other charges for the attack on Derek Chauvin. The investigation into the clerk of court in Alec Murdoch's double murder trial is gaining steam,

and Fitz News out of South Carolina reports the feds are getting involved. Fitz News says the feds are reviewing accounts in Colleton County in which employees receive bonuses for child support enforcement. Those accounts are funded by the Department of Health and Human Services. There are several investigations of Becky Hill underway. First, there's the ethics investigation. Then there's the investigation by SLED. And now Fitz reports that the feds are also looking into Becky Hill.

Let's start with that ethics investigation. Fitz News obtained one of the complaints, and I have a records request in to the South Carolina Ethics Commission for any complaints filed against Becky Hill. The commission is not confirming the existence of a complaint or complaints, but if the commission finds there's probable cause that a violation has occurred, then those complaints will be released, and I have a standing request in for them. Fitz News has obtained one of the complaints that alleges Hill was using her position for personal benefit. And South Carolina attorney Lori Murray has seen the complaints

and says Hill is accused of stealing money. Take a look. So Becky was allowing people to come in and tour the courthouse, tour that nice little holding cell where Alex spent so much time. People who are gawkers were coming in and looking. Meanwhile, Becky's saying the courthouse needs to do windows. If you'd like to make a donation, we're not charging you for the tour, but you can certainly make a donation. Well, at least one of those was a check for $100 that Becky crossed off County of Colleton and put her name and deposited it into her bank account.

That's the allegation. You may recall Becky Hill's son, Colt Hill, was charged with wiretapping last month and fired from his job as IT director for Colleton County. Murray, who's pretty connected in South Carolina, says that's how Becky Hill stayed ahead of the ethics investigation. SLED also seized Becky Hill's cell phone as part of that investigation, according to Fitz News. Now Fitz is also reporting that Becky Hill's personal banking records have also been subpoenaed. Seton Tucker of the Impact of Influence podcast has been following the tangled web. I don't know. You were down there. We were all down there in Colton County, and Becky Hill

was a very gracious person. She really ran that courthouse smoothly. So, you know, I really try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt at this point. But these are very serious allegations, and I think they definitely weren't looking into. Now, we've told you that Becky Hill wrote a book about the Murdoch trial entitled Behind the Doors of Justice, The Murdoch Murders with a man named Neil Gordon. That book is also part of the ethics complaint. I have spoken or communicated with Neil Gordon, and he says these claims don't have merit. He says that the one specifically that Fitz has comes from a disgruntled former employee.

So I don't know. I think that definitely there needs to be more investigation. Finally, there are those jury tampering allegations that Alec Murdoch is making against Becky Hill. She denies that she tried to influence the jury, but some of the jurors have made statements to agents that Hill did make comments that she has denied. An evidentiary hearing on those matters could be held sometime next year. Thanks to huge advancements in DNA technology, a man found dead three decades ago has finally been identified. We now know it was Harold James Crawford that landscaping crews found wrapped in a blanket in a Wichita ditch back in

1994. He was 21 years old when he was reported missing, but it turns out he was a John Doe in the morgue. Forensic scientists were able to identify him using special DNA testing. Now that Crawford has been identified, investigators are trying to figure out who killed him. Authorities also hope now that we know his identity, more people will come forward with tips about what might have happened. That this is the type of kid

that every parent hopes to raise on a roll, regent's diploma, captain of the bowling team. That's the lawyer for Jaden Rivera, the 19-year-old man accused of murdering his dad, his dad's girlfriend, and his five-year-old half-brother in the Bronx a little more than a week ago. Rivera faces charges of murder for the horrific stabbing deaths of his five-year-old half-brother, Caden, his father, Jonathan Rivera, and his father's girlfriend, Hanoi Peralta. The details are incredibly gruesome. Little Caden was actually disemboweled. Peralta was stabbed 15 times and beaten with a pot. Attorney Nick Ramchariter says his client was in college

and not the type of kid who was in trouble. He told me what Rivera's doctors are telling him. Their conversation with me led me to believe that they believe Jaden was of a much higher than average intelligence. They believe that it was some sort of psychotic break. From my conversations with the family, Jaden has never experienced any kind of issues with mental health. There were no signs. There were no symptoms. Ramcharitor says he will ask for a mental health competency evaluation for Jaden Rivera. A date for his arraignment has not yet been set. He's at a lockdown unit at Bellevue Hospital. An appeals court in Illinois has upheld

Jussie Smollett's conviction on charges he staged in abduction hoax. That story grabbed international headlines in 2019 when Smollett told Chicago police two men wearing MAGA hats put a noose around his neck in a gay hate crime attack. Police say it was a hoax to help Smollett's career. A jury agreed. We covered Smollett's sentencing on law and crime in March of last year. Smollett was defiant and insisted he was being set up. I am not suicidal. That's what I was about to say. Okay. I am not suicidal. That's what I was about to say. Okay.

I am not suicidal. Okay. I am not suicidal. I am innocent, and I am not suicidal. If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of Black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community. Your Honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this. Smollett plans to appeal that conviction to the Illinois Supreme Court. He is supposed to report to jail to start his sentence, which had been stayed pending his

appeal, despite the trial court judge insisting he should have started that sentence in March of 2022. A Florida man transporting inmates apparently quit his job in the middle of the trip. Now he's the one facing time behind bars. 21-year-old Joshua James Pinquette worked for a company that moved inmates around the country. A co-worker in another vehicle let the boss know Pinquette had apparently decided he wasn't going to finish the job. Well, he had four inmates locked in the back of his vehicle. And instead of stopping in Hickory, North Carolina, he just kept driving.

The owner of the company called the Iredell County Sheriff's Office to let them know his employee had gone rogue. Authorities managed to get the van to pull over and arrested Pinkett for kidnapping the inmates, as well as another employee who was in the van. He's expected back in court just before Christmas. And of course, it's that time of year, the holidays,

and thieves are out and about, looking for Christmas gifts to steal, and many times they're getting caught. One accused thief was caught in Ohio. Take a look. First off, you're driving without any tail lights. Second off, we keep getting reports of people stealing packages off of porches

where all these boxes come from. We were building gingerbread houses. I got them out the recycling. I just stopped right there and got some. That's 24-year-old Taylor DiBella being confronted by police in Montgomery, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. Police say DiBella and a 15-year-old were stealing packages off porches and they got caught. DiBella eventually got very upset and cried for her mom. Taylor. Common spelling? T-A-Y-L-O-R.

Mommy, please come here fast. DiBella faces several counts of theft and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was released on her own recognizance. And that's it for this edition of Crime Fix for your Monday, December 4th, 2023. I'm Anjanette Levy. Have a great night. We'll see you back here tomorrow.