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Brittany Zamora's Husband Texted Her to Cry. The Boy's Father Was Calling.
Published 2 weeks, 1 day ago
Description
His parents had one rule about the bedroom door: it stayed open. Early in 2018, a thirteen-year-old boy in Goodyear, Arizona quietly stopped leaving it that way, and his stepmother put an app on his phone that watched for certain words. One of them was baby. The account sending those messages belonged to his sixth grade teacher, Brittany Zamora. What his parents did not know that night was that other children in that classroom had already put their concerns in writing, more than a month earlier.
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Brittany Zamora, 27, taught sixth grade at Las Brisas Academy in the Liberty Elementary School District, west of Phoenix. In early February 2018, students gave Principal Tim Dickey written reports about her attention to one boy. The district said it investigated internally, found favoritism, told her to stop, and did not notify law enforcement. She stayed in her classroom. On March 21, 2018, after the boy's stepmother found the messages, school personnel called police; Zamora was arrested the following day. The case also involved an eleven-year-old classmate who told investigators he had been asked to act as a lookout, and who described sexual questions directed at him.
She surrendered her teaching certificate in December 2018 and pleaded guilty on June 11, 2019 to sexual conduct with a minor, attempted molestation of a child, and public sexual indecency. There was no jury verdict. On July 12, 2019, Judge Sherry Stephens sentenced her to twenty years in prison and lifetime probation, saying she had violated a position of trust. Zamora told the court she was ashamed and remorseful; after sentencing, her attorney publicly blamed the boy and read a statement in which Zamora said Arizona had treated her unfairly.
The family sued the school district for two and a half million dollars over its handling of the earlier student reports, and sued her husband, Daniel Zamora, alleging he knew of the abuse and failed to report it. The district acknowledged receiving the rumors and failing to call police while disputing the family's account of what it knew; the lawsuit was not a court finding against the principal. On July 15, 2019, the family's lawyer said Daniel had reached a confidential settlement, still subject to probate court approval. The claim against the district remained ongoing at that point.
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This episode is built from police reports and summaries of the children's interviews, the family's civil filings and the school district's responses to them, courtroom reporting from the June 2019 plea and the July 2019 sentencing hearing, and local Arizona news coverage including KTAR.
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Both children in this case were minors. They are not named in this episode, and no identifying details about them are included.
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Brittany Zamora, 27, taught sixth grade at Las Brisas Academy in the Liberty Elementary School District, west of Phoenix. In early February 2018, students gave Principal Tim Dickey written reports about her attention to one boy. The district said it investigated internally, found favoritism, told her to stop, and did not notify law enforcement. She stayed in her classroom. On March 21, 2018, after the boy's stepmother found the messages, school personnel called police; Zamora was arrested the following day. The case also involved an eleven-year-old classmate who told investigators he had been asked to act as a lookout, and who described sexual questions directed at him.
She surrendered her teaching certificate in December 2018 and pleaded guilty on June 11, 2019 to sexual conduct with a minor, attempted molestation of a child, and public sexual indecency. There was no jury verdict. On July 12, 2019, Judge Sherry Stephens sentenced her to twenty years in prison and lifetime probation, saying she had violated a position of trust. Zamora told the court she was ashamed and remorseful; after sentencing, her attorney publicly blamed the boy and read a statement in which Zamora said Arizona had treated her unfairly.
The family sued the school district for two and a half million dollars over its handling of the earlier student reports, and sued her husband, Daniel Zamora, alleging he knew of the abuse and failed to report it. The district acknowledged receiving the rumors and failing to call police while disputing the family's account of what it knew; the lawsuit was not a court finding against the principal. On July 15, 2019, the family's lawyer said Daniel had reached a confidential settlement, still subject to probate court approval. The claim against the district remained ongoing at that point.
---
This episode is built from police reports and summaries of the children's interviews, the family's civil filings and the school district's responses to them, courtroom reporting from the June 2019 plea and the July 2019 sentencing hearing, and local Arizona news coverage including KTAR.
---
Both children in this case were minors. They are not named in this episode, and no identifying details about them are included.