'Predator' Posing as 14-Year-Old to Have Sex With Teen Boys Has More Victims: Police

Alysa Zinger a 23-year-old grocery store worker dancing on Tik Tock she was already in legal trouble accused of having sex with a junior high school student now she's facing more charges and her parents could also be in trouble we have the scoop thanks for joining me for Crime fix I'm Anette Levy Alyssa Zinger is a 23-year-old grocery store worker who was accused of posing as a homeschooled 14-year-old girl so she could have sex with a boy who was between 12 and 15 years old we first told you about Zinger last December when she was charged

with two felony counts of lwd or lascivious battery and five felony counts of LW or lascivious molestation now Zinger is in the Hillsboro County Jail in Tampa facing even more charges she's now accused of having sex with five boys who are either 13 or 14 now this isn't a complete shock because Tampa police chief had said last year he believed there were more victims out there and he had called Zinger a predator the investigation began last October after a 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 and now Zinger parents could also be in legal Jeopardy after a detective hinted in court that they may have tried to hinder the investigation more on that in just a minute joining me to discuss this case is somebody who knows a lot about defending people he's Brian Claypool he's a trial attorney Brian the facts in this case and the allegations are pretty stunning Alyssa Zinger is actually accused of posing as a 14-year-old girl

so she could molest teenage boys yeah that's just staggering I mean the thing that strikes me the most too putting aside you know her obvious nefarious behavior is how was she to post a profile and and pretend to be a 14-year-old my point being shouldn't we as a society be looking at these social media platforms like Snapchat a lot of this was happening on Snapchat uh Instagram and all these other uh media portals I mean I there there has to be some kind of new law legislated where for example uh the the age of anybody

that jumps on something like Snapchat Snapchat has to be verified that to me was one of the most staggering facts in this case M we do have some really young kids on Snapchat I mean that is a good point and Tik Tok that's how she's accused of reaching out to these kids and then she's also accused of sending a video of kids other kids having sex to other kids so she's accused of transmitting child pornography essentially um that she captured so that so there are several things going on here but we do have kids as

young as 12 accessing these apps that's a great point I mean I I I I have a teenage daughter I'm a single parent of a teenage daughter and I have to tell you the hair in my skin was Rising when I found out she was on Snapchat a couple of years ago for the exact reason we're talking about I pulled her aside and I said you need to be careful because there could be people chatting with you in Snapchat who are not who they pret who they are pretending to be they might be an older

man who's trying to you know get after you or to seduce you and that's kind of scary as a parent where you have to talk to your kids about you know looking at things like is this person real or not are are they who they say and that's why I think we really need to clamp down on verifying ages or of of men women who are over 18 who were having these kind of conversations with minors that's just awful and then look another point I want to make is I I I I do a lot

of sexual abuse cases I represent a lot of victims of sexual abuse including my ERS and adult victims of child sexual abuse and I had a case a couple years ago I represented four boys in the central part of California who were seduced and had sexual relations with a teacher at a school and if you can believe this the one of the school's big arguments in the case was hey these are guys these are young boys so it's not as bad as uh a man doing it with a young girl and I found that argument

to be just uh uh really irresponsible because as part of working these cases up you get a psychological uh profile of of of the juveniles in other words you have them see what's called a forensic psychologist and then you draw a report to find out how they've been impacted I will tell you young boys under 18 who are molested by women it's not a fun game for them when they become adults they have trust issues it affects their ability to be in a stable relationship with women when they get older they view women more in

in they objectify women when they get older so there's a there's lifelong trauma that's associated with young boys being molested by a woman and I I I'm so glad you brought that up we've discussed that many times on crime FS about how people say oh it's a boy you know they hahaa it's like locker room humor about how they they probably liked it it there it does create major issues and and these are crimes that is accused of and it doesn't matter that the gender of the person inv involved in this the the victim is

you know that it's a boy versus a girl they're still a child that's the point here so Alyssa Zinger um her defense attorney in court said this is somebody with some developmentmental issues um you know she's had anxiety issues over the years so it wasn't like this is a 22-year-old woman communicating with a teenage boy or you know a a 12-y old boy or a 13-y old boy a 14y old boy because she's got these developmental issues the state on the other hand says I don't think so they're are no signs of that in her

educational records what do what do you have to say about that is that a defense attorney basically just trying to represent their client and say hey my client's not so bad and you know she she has some issues here or is that a legitimate defense uh in this circumstance if I'm representing Alysa Zinger I I would make that argument here's why and by the way I'm not defending what she allegedly did but if I'm representing her and I've got to give a zealous defense I have seen for example her Tik Tok video I'm not sure

if you saw that there's one of her dancing in a bathroom it was filmed in a bathroom and it looked you know my visceral reaction was this looks like a 13-year-old not a 22y old that's one example so I did think is there something mentally not right with her and then there was another example where she and one of the boys that she allegedly had a sexual relation with I think he was 14 or 15 they were caught shoplifting at a Nordstrom store she's conf Zinger is confronted by a police officer and she lies to

to a cop and says I'm I'm here's my name and I'm I'm 14 years old here's my birthdaye making her 14 years old like the cops figured it out that's not her she's not or that's her but she's not 14 she's in her 20s my point being she is that psychotic that she's going to lie to a police officer and think she's not going to get caught so I think there is some type of argument to make she needs to undergo a mental health exam and and maybe what her lawyers will argue is a Doctrine

called diminished capacity which which it doesn't absolve her of the crimes but it would lead to a lesser crime because what that means is basically her mental capacity was impaired enough to to destroy the intent to sexually BL these young boys and then she would get charged or or convicted of a lesser crime there are predators everywhere and they can look like the person next door heck they can look like the person at the grocery store and they can even live next door to you or maybe they can even have access to your children you

have to do whatever you can to keep yourself and your family safe truthfinder.com can help you with that truthfinder is a website that allows you to search public records to look for any red flags that will help you get information about the people that you meet every day log on to truthfinder and search a name you'll get a person's address both past and current any possible criminal records results and even traffic tickets maybe you want to search a neighbor a new friend or someone who's going to babysit your kids or maybe it's just somebody you

met while you were out and about truthfinder will even show you sex offender statuses for people who live in your neighborhood the cases I cover each day make it clear that you can never take too many steps to keep yourself and your kids safe now if you'd like to check out truthfinder and I think you should you can get 50% off of confidential background reports just log on to www.truthfinder.com LC crifix and start accessing information about almost anyone she's being held without bail right now and during a hearing this week about you know her alleged

crimes and things of that nature um it was brought up that her parents could possibly have some exposure here because they may have according to a detective and and I think that we have to say may have because they have not been charged with a crime uh may have tried to hide a cell phone belonging to her and may not have turned it over the proper cell phone when they came to the home the detectives did with the search warrant so we've got that aspect of this too so do you expect the parents to be

charged after the detective actually brings this up in court and shows body camera footage of the police at her home with the parents um you know and as they're trying to serve a search warrant for the phone well I you raised an interesting fact if that happened parents should minimally be charged with what's called accessory after the fact what does that mean means that the parents were not involved directly in in ays ising or carrying out these alleged sexual assaults but they they helped her evade uh a prosecution in this case they helped her evade

Justice in this case by possibly hiding evidence that's what accessory after the fact is and if that happened I hope they get charged because that leads to another point I wanted to make which is I'm not sure that we've heard the full story about the parents or other individuals who may have been enablers of of Alyssa Zinger carrying this out I have been involved in I've represented hundreds of sexual abuse victims and a couple of cases have been with M with with multiple victims happening multiple times why is that important because usually there's somebody on

the inside a family member a friend an associate who is enabling this behavior and and and one of the one of the boys that Zinger allegedly had sex with it happened 30 times that means that investigators should be looking for example where did these take place did they have did where did the sex take place did it happen in somebody's apartment somebody's house for example did that happen in a hotel room should a hotel be responsible for seeing a grown woman walking into a hotel room with a with a young boy and according to the

police it's all on tape Brian so this is a tough case if you have her on tape on these videos having sex with these kids and they are kids and then she's sending a video of other kids having sex my God to other kids I mean this is a tough case to defend yeah no no you you raised another interesting point in California where I'm at in the LA area uh it's a felony to to have a a an adult send any pornographic n even a naked picture to a minor let alone a video of

of a of sexual intercourse happening that's a felony separate in and of itself and if she how many count how many times she did it maybe it's once who knows but those are separate IND individual charges that carry s you know certain number of years in jail so this this is an extremely serious case for Alyssa Zinger and the way I see it is her only you know Bonafide defense here is is the mental health aspect she's and and by the way that is going to be a difficult defense if for example she hasn't had

any therapy before this right because that's what we look at to even with victims you know when they come to us and they say hey I was molested when I was younger have you ever seen a therapist if she hasn't if Zinger has never talked to anybody about this about her mental you know development then that's going to hinder her defense but that said if she's got a good lawyer they're going to have her set up with what's called a forensic psychologist and they're going to do a detailed mental health exam of her and I

expect her lawyers to make the argument that she was mentally incapacitated uh and she's behaving like a teenager not an adult for a mental health heal reason we will find out uh as this case progresses she'll be back in court next week Brian Claypool thank you so much you bet thanks for having me and that's it for this episode of crime fix I'm Anette leevy thanks so much for being with us we'll see you back here next time