A Hillsborough County judge decided Monday that a woman from Tampa who is accused of pretending to be a teen to get teenage boys to sleep with her will be held in jail until her trial.
In court, 23-year-old Alyssa Zinger asked the judge if she could be let out of jail before her sentencing. Zinger was caught in November and charged with five counts of felony lewd or lascivious abuse and two counts of felony lewd or lascivious battery.
Detectives say Zinger had a sexual relationship with a young boy that went on for a long time. The case goes back to May 2023, when she is said to have made friends with Woodrow Wilson Middle School kids in Tampa through Snapchat. Court papers say that detectives think she had at least 30 sexual encounters at the home of a student between the ages of 12 and 15 years old.
Police said that some sex acts were caught on Snapchat and sent to other students. Zinger said he wasn’t guilty of those charges.
Detectives say that the investigation into that case led to the finding of four more victims, including the one who brought Zinger back to court on Monday.
On Monday, Amanda Baranowski, a detective with the Tampa Police Department, said that Zinger lied to a 14-year-old boy and said she was 16 years old when she was actually 21. In other cases, she is said to have pretended to be 14 years old.
The detective also said that her probe is still going on and that there may be more victims.
Since April, when the other potential victims came forward, Zinger has been in jail. The defense asked the judge to take into account the fact that Zinger had a history of mental health problems and didn’t break any laws during her initial pre-trial freedom.
But the judge agreed with the lawyers and told the jail to keep Zinger there until her trial.