Law&Crime Sidebar - Son of Housewives Star’s Sex Crimes Case EXPLODES

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

In Fulton County, Georgia, 15-year-old Kroy "KJ" Biermann Jr., son of reality TV star Kim Zolciak, faces seven felony sex crime charges following an alleged sexual assault inside a fitness center family changing room. As the defense points to a lack of male DNA evidence and fights to transfer the case to juvenile court, prosecutors are pushing to try the teenager as an adult. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber breaks down the graphic allegations and the upcoming bond hearing with former child abuse and sex crimes prosecutor Marian Braccia.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Go to https://quince.com/lawcrime to get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson, Heather Berzak & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY 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/lawandcrimeTwitter: 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.

For years, Kim Zolziak invited the cameras in. We watched the glamour, the drama, and the family life playing out on reality TV. But there is no camera crew allowed in the Fulton County Detention Center because that is where her 15-year-old son, K.J. Bierman, is right now. This is as he faces seven felony sexual crime charges accused of sexually assaulting a female classmate. How did a kid with the world at his feet end up here? And what big move are prosecutors making that could change everything? Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. So if you watch a lot of reality TV, especially in the last 15 years, you might be familiar with the name Kim Zolziak. She spent years on reality TV, letting cameras into her life. She was one of the original cast members of the Real Housewives of Atlanta when it premiered back in 2008. She even had a spin-off show. It was called Don't Be Tarty, ran for eight seasons. She also competed on dancing with the stars. She's a Bravo celebrity.

And while she might be used to having the camera zoomed in on her private affairs, I will tell you right now, nothing. Absolutely nothing could have prepared her for something like this. Her 15-year-old son, Croix K.J. Beerman Jr. is sitting in a detention center. He has been there for a month. He is facing seven felony charges that could put him behind bars for decades. This is KJ to his family, a kid who was supposed to be starting high school right now with football scholarship offers and a future ahead of him. Instead, he's locked up, accused of sexually assaulting a female classmate inside a gym changing room.

He's been indicted on seven felony charges, those being aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, aggravated sexual, battery, false imprisonment, three counts of sexual battery against the child under 16, and now the prosecution wants to try him as an adult. But his lawyer says he's completely innocent. He didn't do this. So how does a 15-year-old end up in this position? Well, that is part of what we're going to get into. And we have a former sex crimes prosecutor here to help us understand all of this. But KJ's mother has actually spoken out to about all of this. And we're going to get into that as well. There's also a major upcoming hearing in this case that we're going to be paying very careful attention to and close attention to. All right, I know this is a 180, but this is a sponsor of ours that I think you're going to absolutely love because picture this.

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So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to quince.com slash law crime. Get free shipping on your order, 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK 2. That's QI-N-N-C-E.com slash law crime. But first, we need to lay out exactly what allegedly happened here, where things stand, because this case is moving very rapidly. And I will just tell you right now, fair warning. The allegations that we're going to get into, quite graphic, okay? But we'll tell you the gist of it. So this all stems from an incident, back on April 23rd at a Lifetime Fitness Center in Alpharetta, Georgia.

This is a suburb in Atlanta. KJ was apparently 14 at the time. The alleged victim was 15, a 15-year-old female classmate. And according to the police report, the two were at the gym together, and KJ had allegedly suggested they go into a co-ed sauna. So to get to the sauna, they had to walk through a family changing room, and that is where this alleged assault happened. Now, law and crime has obtained the police report in the affidavit, which lay out all of this in disturbing detail, and we're going to get into this with our guests because there's a lot to break down.

But essentially, the girl told police that KJ began touching her, and she said no. She then alleges he forced her to perform sexual acts on him and attempted multiple times to try and force her into further sexual activity. She claimed she finally managed to get away from him, and that is when KJ allegedly pulled up his pants and left. The alleged victim didn't report it immediately, but the next day, she apparently went to the North Fulton Hospital for an examination, and that is when police became involved. But there is a detail here that is a bit complicated we need to talk about. So the police report notes that no male DNA was found on or inside the areas the alleged victim claims. she was assaulted. And that's going to be potentially a major issue for the prosecution. But despite that, the investigation continued. And on August 17th, KJ was arrested and he was booked

on felony aggravated sodomy and aggravated sexual battery charges. He was held without bond. And then as I mentioned before, on September 3rd, he was indicted on the seven felony charges. Now, his attorney, Jason Sheffield, is pushing back, telling multiple outlets that his client is 100% innocent, that he has evidence of other prior false allegations made by this alleged victim. And he went on to say, quote, additionally, the officers report notes that investigators found no male DNA on or inside the areas the alleged victim claimed she was assaulted. The fact that he's been arrested as being held without bond is a tragedy. He is not only presumed innocent, but is in fact innocent. I'm asking the public not to presume the truth of these allegations and to give the families on both sides their space and privacy.

Now, Kim Zolsiac also spoke out telling page six in a statement, quote, the allegations being made against my son are nothing short of reckless and deeply troubling. She went on to say, every legitimate allegation deserves to be taken seriously and investigated based on the facts and evidence. At the same time, no one should be publicly condemned based solely on an accusation. We remain confident that the facts and evidence will establish the truth, and we ask that people allow the proper process to take its course, rather than spreading unproven allegations. Now, something else I have to mention.

So page six is now reporting that KJ's legal team has filed a motion to transfer his case to juvenile court and for confidentiality proceeding. So they want this case seemingly out of adult court into the juvenile system, the stakes, the punishment, the rules, different, and a bond hearing is now scheduled for September 11th. The prosecution is intending to try case.

AJ as an adult. So there's a lot at stake here and there's a lot to break down. To do this, I want to bring on a special guest. I want to bring on Marian Bracha. She is a practice professor of law and director of the LLM in trial advocacy program. Before that, she spent years as a prosecutor handling these kind of child abuse, sex crimes cases. Good to see, professor. It's been a minute. Thanks for taking the time. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. So you talk about a 15-year-old here, 14 at the time of this alleged incident. Just walk us through what? What? it means for prosecutors to be seeking to try him as an adult? Why do they want to do this? And what are the factors that a court considers here in whether or not to try someone or to transfer the case

to adult court rather than juvenile court? Well, every state is going to vary in its rules regarding who can be tried as an adult and who can be tried as a juvenile depending on age and depending on the nature of the offenses that have been charged. So in Georgia, it is known colloquially and legally as one of the seven deadly crimes or seven deadly sins. And included among those seven crimes are aggravated child molestation, aggravated sexual battery, which are two of the charges that this defendant has been facing. And so because he is under 17, but older than... and 13 and charged with one of these seven, seven most serious or most egregious offenses as determined

by the Georgia statutes, that automatically gives the Superior Court in Georgia jurisdiction over this case, which means that even though he's 15 now, 14 at the time of the alleged defense, the adult system has jurisdiction over his prosecution. And talk to me about how it would be different, right? So if you have a case, a criminal case, in a juvenile court versus an adult court, the rules of evidence different, is the procedure different, punishments different? Let's just talk about that for a minute. Well, luckily, for an evidence professor, the rules of evidence apply at both a juvenile proceeding, which is known as an adjudicatory hearing, the same way they would apply at an adult proceeding, which is known as a trial. So the proceedings themselves are a little different in terms of how open they are. are to the public in terms of the formality that attaches.

There is no right to a jury trial in the juvenile system. And there has to be a petition filed by the prosecution, by the state of Georgia to proceed with the charges against a juvenile and bring that case forward to an adjudicatory hearing, which for all intents and purposes is a trial. Even, however, if there is a finding at the end of that, adjudicatory hearing for a juvenile, there isn't necessarily the same kind of disposition,

meaning that you've been convicted, you've been found guilty, and a sentence of incarceration will follow that. There could be a probationary sentence. There could be an open disposition period, which means that a juvenile defendant might be on court supervised supervision for a period of time just to make sure he's going to school, make sure that he's abiding by anybody. any other conditions that the court puts on his release. And a juvenile very often remains eligible to apply for sealing or expungement of a juvenile record. By contrast, if a juvenile is tried in the adult system, it's exactly as would happen to an adult's record.

There is a trial. There is a right to a jury. Put 12 people in the jury box as fact finders. those charges would attach to a criminal record if, in fact, there is a conviction after that trial. And it's very, very hard, if not impossible, to expunge a conviction if one is the result of that fact-finding proceeding. That was so well said. Thank you so much for laying that out because it's very important to understand the differences there. And sometimes it's not entirely clear. That was very well said. I appreciate that. So we have this affidavit, and it lays out what the alleged victim told police, in her own words, through the investigator.

And I kind of want to talk about this because according to the Alpharetta PD, KJ, allegedly began touching her over her shorts. And she apparently told investigators, quote, she didn't know what to do. She felt like she was frozen. Now, she claimed she swatted his hand away a few times, telling him to stop, but that he continued. She told him to stop again, pushed him back. The affidavit states, quote, he then told her, you're fine, you're fine, and it's not like I'm forcing this. And she responded, but yes, you are. And she apparently told investigators that any time she would say no, he would kiss her to stop her from talking. And he kept asking and she kept saying no. Now, according to the document, she said she finally gave it.

And she apparently told police she performed a sexual act on him for about five seconds before standing up and telling him again that she didn't want to do this. The affidavit then says, quote, he then gets mad and puts his hand on her shoulder and pushes her down. Now, Professor, back to you. You and I, I talked about this before. There seems to be an issue with a lack of DNA evidence in this case. Is this purely one person's account versus another person's account? And how on earth is a jury or a judge supposed to weigh credibility here in terms of what happened? That's exactly what they're supposed to do. You answered the question in your question. So for sexually based offenses, and I'm fairly certain that this is consistent across the states and in Georgia as well, there need not be corroboration for any element of any crime charged. This, however, is the uphill battle for every prosecutor or every advocate who handles

a case of sexual violence, which is to say that these crimes aren't crimes that happen on street corners. They aren't crimes that happen in the general public. They aren't crimes that are captured by surveillance footage or by dash cams, right? These are crimes that happen in private, in intimate moments, sometimes even in a marital home or bedroom. And it is very difficult to prove those charges and to prove the facts underlying any offense, because you're absolutely right. It comes down to one person's version of what happened versus another person saying not guilty or not saying anything at all, which is a defendant's absolute constitutional right in this country. So the job of the fact finder is to do exactly how you phrased it, exactly

what you phrased in your question, which is to weigh credibility, which is to watch the victim or the complainant, the complaining witness in this case, to listen to her testimony, to watch how she testifies, to listen to the details that she is able to relay about this whole experience, watch her demeanor while she testifies, consider if she has any interest in the outcome of the case, consider if there is any corroboration to what she's talking about. Was there surveillance camera footage outside this family changing room at the gym? Is there anything to corroborate that they were in this changing area together? And then, of course, the last factor that any fact finder can and should bring to the consideration of credibility is one's own common sense.

Does the testimony of the complaining witness in this case have the ring of truth? Does it come across as believable in the totality of the circumstances and considering those four prior factors that I outlined for you? It seems to me, and I've covered a number of different sexual assault cases, alleged sexual assault cases, particularly, you know, even when you're talking about adults, a defense attorney cross-examining alleged adult victim is challenging, sensitive. It's very, specific. You have to be very, very careful in how you do it. But now if you're talking about a minor, what is that challenge for a defense attorney to question the credibility of a minor alleged victim? How does that work exactly? I think I think the answer to that depends on the makeup of the fact-finding body. So I think that a defense attorney preparing to cross-examine a juvenile complainant on a sexual assault case might consider if there are parents on the jury, if there are parents of teenagers on the jury, what the judge take the judge's temperature in terms of how the judge typically relates to or treats juvenile witnesses, juvenile victims, female victims and witnesses on the stand.

All of those considerations go into informing the advocacy strategy in terms of how that witness is approached. So I'm not sure that there is a, if this, then that equation to bring to the strategy of the defense here. But I think that a good defense attorney would always consider who the listener is, and whether a more aggressive form of questioning might actually be effective, whether it needs to be a little more empathetic and patient and soft-toned. But that's all really going to depend on the makeup of the fact-finding body. Now, his attorney, Jason Sheffield, has been very public about this case. And we mentioned earlier that he told page six, he has evidence of these alleged prior false allegations by this accuser.

Is that evidence going to come in and what does that mean for the prosecution's case if this is true? So I would anticipate that that will be the subject of a motion in limine or a motion pre-trial, which is a proceeding at which the judge who will preside over the trial will consider the admissibility of certain evidence. So ordinarily, witnesses on sexual crimes and victims of alleged sexual offenses are protected by what's known in many states as rape shield. And so there is a version of that law in Georgia. I would anticipate that the prosecution in this case would invoke that to say this is information that might pertain to the victim's sexual past, which is protected. She is protected from having that brought up in open court and cross-examined about it. The answer to that or the response from the defense would be this, we're not getting into her sexual history. We're not asking about prior partners or prior experiences.

What we're doing is exploring information that might have an impact on how her credibility is judged. So if there is evidence that she has been dishonest in the past, if she has these instances of dishonest behavior or false reporting, the fact finder has a right to hear that because she has this tendency for dishonesty and they have a right to consider that potential history of dishonesty in weighing whether or not she's being honest or truthful or credible in this instance. Let me ask you this. If it turns out that this case is dropped or it turns out that her allegations are unsubstantiated. substantiated. Does he have a legal claim against her in any way? Because this is a very public case. This is a point where his mother has come out and said, everybody reserved judgment at this point. I talked about what his life was going to look like, and now he's been locked up without bond, which we'll talk about in a minute. But again, these are very serious allegations. We're trying to understand what to make of them as well. But does he have a potential

claim against her if this prosecution falls apart, if the charges are dropped, talk to me about it. I have seen that happen before, not very often, but I have seen that happen where there is a defamation claim filed at the conclusion of a criminal case if, again, as you put it, the victim's reports or her claims are unsubstantiated. However, there's a different standard for dismissing a criminal case or finding that there is insufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal case versus the standard for finding that there was a false statement made. So remember, there's, you know, and I don't mean to make light of this at all, but there's a big difference between being innocent and being found not guilty. They found not guilty means that there wasn't

sufficient evidence presented by the prosecuting body, that they didn't meet their burden. That doesn't mean that the person, that the person accused didn't do it. It just meant that it couldn't be proved. And so it's the same distinction. I'm trying to make an analogy. There's the same distinction there between dismissing a case and finding that there's insufficient evidence to proceed or to substantiate the state of Georgia's burden in this case. And the burden that the plaintiff in a civil case would have to prove that this victim on the criminal case made knowingly false statements when she reported this episode to police. Do you think it's significant that his mother publicly came out and made a statement, not just saying, hey, there's nothing we can talk about right now in due time.

No, came out quite aggressively in response to these allegations against her son. What did you make of that? Not much, to be perfectly honest, Jesse. I'm a parent. I think any parent out there can relate to what they would say or do if their child's future were on the line. So the fact that his mother made a statement that shows me that she's a supportive mother and wants the best outcome for this case. Evidentiarily, as a former prosecutor, as a law professor, I don't think it carries much evidentiary weight because that statement wouldn't be admissible in court anyway. Final point regarding bond, from a legal standpoint, is it unusual for a 15-year-old to be held without bond for a month?

or do you look at these charges and you say, no, it makes sense? Well, I'll say this without at all meaning to be flip or sarcastic. This is Georgia, after all. I will say that in my opinion, it is rare to see a juvenile held for over a month without any supervised release, without any possibility of bond. Bail is intended to secure a defendant's participation in the criminal process. It is intended to make sure that a defendant shows up when and where they are subpoenaed for their hearings, for their trials. It is not intended to be punitive.

It's not intended to be the first step in a penalty phase. So to keep a 15-year-old in custody for over a month, especially with school in session now, is somewhat surprising to me. But again, that's going to vary jurisdiction to jurisdiction. and the state of Georgia might have put forth that it has an interest in keeping this person in custody, not only to assure his presence and participation, but also for the safety of the victim and the community at large. Yeah, and he's, look, he's facing some serious allegations, some serious charges here. Professor Marion Boucher, thank you so much for taking the time. Good to see you. Thank you. Good to see you, Jesse.

That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, ex-instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live,

Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern. See you next time, everybody.