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Former DCF Worker To Plead Guilty To Lying To Investigators

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 11, 2009

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• Read The Plea Agreement

  Al Zimmerman

TAMPA - A former Department of Children & Families employee has agreed to plead guilty to lying to investigators to help his friend, former DCF spokesman Al Zimmerman.

Zimmerman, who was fired from the department after his arrest last year, pleaded guilty last month to production of child pornography, a charge that carries up to 30 years in federal prison. He will be sentenced April 23.

Michael Hernandez, a former DCF technology worker, has signed an agreement saying he will plead guilty to making false statements, which carries up to five years in federal prison.

Zimmerman, 41, was arrested in February 2008 and accused of making sexually explicit photos and videos of two 16-year-old boys. Authorities said he met one of the boys through his job with DCF.

More recently, federal prosecutors said investigators had identified five more victims.

When Zimmerman was arrested, authorities identified Hernandez as his colleague and sex partner. Officials said Hernandez helped Zimmerman get rid of evidence by throwing away his home computer and wiping his work laptop clean.

According to Hernandez's plea agreement, the two men met at work in 2007. Hernandez was a computer technician for DCF while he attended college. At the time, Zimmerman was 39 and Hernandez was 23.

They socialized and Zimmerman gave Hernandez a key to his house, encouraging him to stay there whenever he wanted.

Zimmerman told Hernandez he knew important people and had a physical relationship with a movie star. He also said he had been a "porn scout" and had taken pornographic pictures of males. He told Hernandez his computer might contain pornographic pictures of boys, but he didn't know their ages.

Zimmerman told Hernandez he had partied with boys from Plant High School in South Tampa at his house when he lived in Tampa and was known as the "Plant Menace."

Steve Cole, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, said officials have investigated those statements.

About a week before investigators searched Zimmerman's house, he told Hernandez he had applied for a job at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and was worried about the background check.

A couple of days later, he asked Hernandez to wipe his work laptop clean. Hernandez told Zimmerman he was overreacting but erased the computer's hard drive after Zimmerman insisted.

Zimmerman then told Hernandez he had put his home computer in Hernandez's truck and wanted him to get rid of it. Hernandez threw the computer into a trash container.

On Jan. 31, 2008, Zimmerman called Hernandez and asked him to go to his house to make sure everything was OK.

While Zimmerman talked to Hernandez on the phone, law enforcement officers pulled into the driveway to execute a search warrant. Asked about Zimmerman's computers, Hernandez told investigators he had thrown the home computer in the trash a month or two before because it was old and had viruses.

He said he had worked on Zimmerman's computer at work but had "no idea what was wrong with it."

Eventually, Hernandez told investigators the truth and tried to help them find the computer he had thrown in the trash, according to his plea agreement. But it was too late. A garbage truck had taken it away.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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