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Published 09:24 16 Jul 2026 GMT
The attorney representing a New Jersey woman accused of sexually assaulting a two-year-old girl has argued that the allegations have been exaggerated, claiming the child's behavior was misunderstood rather than criminal.
During a detention hearing, 25-year-old Victoria Cranmer became emotional as a judge ordered that she remain in custody without bail over what he described as a "bizarre" and "troubling" incident that allegedly took place on May 6.
According to the Asbury Park Press, prosecutors claim Cranmer was caring for the toddler at the child's home while the girl's mother was away when the alleged assault occurred.
Cranmer's lawyer, Marissa Koerner, maintained that the 14-second Snapchat video at the center of the case captured an "innocent moment" rather than evidence of a crime.
"Anyone who has spent time caring for young children understands that children often have little appreciation for personal space or privacy," Koerner said.
"Young children routinely follow parents or caregivers into bathrooms, touch things, ask questions, are curious and fail to recognize ordinary social boundaries."
Prosecutor Lynn Juan told the court that the footage showed Cranmer sitting on a toilet while laughing as the child allegedly touched her.
Koerner argued that the child's actions were typical of a young toddler, saying: "Children often engage in funny, spontaneous or strange behavior that adults record because the moment is memorable or humorous."
She added: "The video has been blown out of proportion."
However, Ocean County Judge Kenneth Palmer rejected that argument, describing the footage as deeply concerning.
"The word to describe it is bizarre," Palmer said.
"I find it to be troubling there wasn't any attempt to stop the child from touching her."
Court documents state that the alleged offence came to light after a friend, with whom Cranmer had reportedly been living for around three months, reclaimed a phone they had purchased for her.
According to the filing, Cranmer had been living with the childhood friend who gave her a place to stay, bought her an iPhone 17 Pro and set her up with cell service in April for her birthday.
The friend also allowed Cranmer to babysit her child. But after Cranmer was kicked out in early May, she was told to return the phone. The device was left in the woman’s mailbox, the documents allege, and it had no passcode.
When the friend checked the phone, she allegedly found a 14-second Snapchat video showing Cranmer in a bathroom with a young child touching her while she sat on the toilet. The court papers say Cranmer could be heard laughing and taunting the child in the clip.
Investigators say the friend was able to identify Cranmer in the footage through several distinctive tattoos, including a crudely drawn image of breasts and other tattoos visible on her legs, according to court filings.
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Published 13:05 15 Jul 2026 GMT
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Published 11:31 09 Jul 2026 GMT
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A mother has been left horrified after a New Jersey babysitter was accused of leaving behind a phone containing shocking footage, according to court papers.
Victoria Anne Cranmer, 25, appeared in Ocean County Superior Court on Tuesday morning and was ordered held without bail, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said.
She was arrested after videos were found on her phone of her sexually assaulting a toddler, it has been alleged.
The video of the young boy, who was still in diapers at the time of the assault, was recorded in a Snapchat video, prosecutors have claimed.
According to the filing, Cranmer had been living with a childhood friend who gave her a place to stay, bought her an iPhone 17 Pro and set her up with cell service in April for her birthday.
The friend also allowed Cranmer to babysit her daughter. But after Cranmer was kicked out in early May, she was told to return the phone. The device was left in the woman’s mailbox, the documents allege, and it had no passcode.
When the friend checked the phone, she allegedly found a 14-second Snapchat video showing Cranmer in a bathroom with a young boy touching her while she sat on the toilet. The court papers say Cranmer could be heard laughing and taunting the child in the clip.
The boy was reportedly the son of another woman, identified in the filing as “Ms. H,” who had also used Cranmer as a babysitter.
After noticing her son no longer wanted baths, the mother was later told by the boy that Cranmer had bathed with him, the documents allege.
Ms. P., the friend who discovered the video, was reportedly so “freaked out” that she saved the clip and blocked Cranmer from Snapchat.
She claimed that she recognized Cranmer by her leg tattoos, including one depicting a pair of breasts, her voice, and the fact that the video was filmed in her own bathroom.
The filing also claims Cranmer had taken other bathroom videos involving herself and the boy and sent at least one to another Snapchat account, although it was not clear whether those clips included explicit material. Prosecutors said Cranmer did not send the video showing the alleged assault.
Cranmer has since been charged with second-degree sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, manufacturing child sexual abuse material, and possession of child sexual abuse material. Her defense lawyer was not immediately known.
Published 10:21 11 Jul 2026 GMT
A New Jersey woman has been arrested after allegedly recording herself sexually assaulting a child under 13 and sharing the footage on Snapchat.
Investigators identified her through a distinctive tattoo on her leg.
Victoria Anne Cranmer, 25, of Little Egg Harbor, was charged on Tuesday with second-degree sexual assault, second-degree manufacturing of child sexual abuse material, third-degree possession of child sexual abuse material, and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
She is being held without bail at Ocean County Jail.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, investigators were able to identify Cranmer through several distinctive tattoos visible in the 14-second recording.
One of the tattoos, located on her leg, depicts breasts.
The tattoo proved to be the critical piece of evidence linking Cranmer to the footage.
Without it, identifying suspects in child abuse material can take investigators months or even years.
The investigation did not begin with a tip from Snapchat or a report from a concerned member of the public. It began with a returned phone.
According to court documents, the mobile phone used to record the footage had been given to Cranmer as a birthday present by a former roommate.
After a falling out, the roommate asked Cranmer to move out and to leave the phone behind.
While reviewing the phone's contents after getting it back, the roommate discovered the recording. They saved the video and turned the device over to investigators.
The case was referred to the Little Egg Harbor Police Department and the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office Special Victims Unit on May 20 by the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.
Detectives obtained search warrants for both the phone and Cranmer's Snapchat account.
On the account, they found additional videos saved in Snapchat's Memories feature, a function that allows users to store content within the app.
Several of the videos showed Cranmer and the alleged victim in a bathroom.
At least one was shared on Snapchat, according to New Jersey 101.5.
The original 14-second clip, which court documents describe as showing the assault of a child under 13, was recorded on May 6 inside the bathroom of a home in Little Egg Harbor while the child was in Cranmer's care.
According to documents cited by NJ.com, Cranmer can be heard laughing while the alleged assault takes place.
Cranmer faces four charges in total.
Second-degree sexual assault and second-degree manufacturing of child sexual abuse material are the most serious, each carrying significant prison time under New Jersey law.
She also faces third-degree possession of child sexual abuse material and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
She was booked into Ocean County Jail and is being held without bail pending further proceedings. No court date has been publicly announced.
The charges are similar in nature to those brought against adult film actor Austin Wolf, who was recently sentenced to 19 years in prison after being found in possession of hundreds of videos depicting sexual abuse of minors, including footage involving infants.
Snapchat's Memories function allows users to save Snaps and Stories within the app rather than to their phone's camera roll.
Content saved in Memories is stored on Snapchat's servers and can be accessed by the user at any time.
In this case, investigators obtained a warrant for Cranmer's Snapchat account and were able to recover additional videos that had been saved using the feature.
The fact that the content was stored within Snapchat rather than on the phone itself meant it would not have been visible to the roommate who discovered the original clip on the device.
It also means the videos were accessible to Snapchat as a platform.
Under US federal law, electronic service providers are required to report any child sexual abuse material they become aware of to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
It is not clear whether Snapchat flagged the content before investigators obtained the warrant.
Cranmer remains in custody at Ocean County Jail.
The investigation is being handled by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office Special Victims Unit in conjunction with the Little Egg Harbor Police Department.
Prosecutors have not indicated whether additional charges may follow, though the discovery of multiple videos on both the phone and Cranmer's Snapchat account suggests the investigation is ongoing.
The identity of the child has not been made public.
The victim is confirmed to be under 13 years old.
Published 13:58 14 Feb 2026 GMT
A father has shared a troubling response after his daughter was charged with posing as a teenager to molest young boys.
Alyssa Zinger was arrested in 2023 after allegedly posing as a 14-year-old on social media and having sexual encounters with a boy between the ages of 12 and 15.
“It is disturbing and unsettling to see an adult take advantage of a child and prey on them,” police Chief Lee Bercaw said in a press release, per PEOPLE.
“Anyone who may have been a victim of Zinger’s, we encourage you to come forward. The Tampa Police Department will support you and ensure a predator like Zinger doesn’t cause you or others additional harm," Bercaw added.
Josh Zinger, the father of the imprisoned woman, spoke to The New York Post about his daughter's charges and strangely claimed that she is the real victim.
He revealed that Zinger grew up in a “good Christian home” in Tampa and throughout her life was charged with many mental disorders, such as ADHD, ADD, OCD, as well as Tourette’s syndrome, and anorexia.
“She had a lot of problems growing up. Our daughter has been to 10 to 12 psychologists and psychiatrists throughout her life,” the 55-year-old dad said, sharing that his daughter once got a 72 on an intelligence quotient test.
“She’s defective - mentally defective. And do you know what that means under the law? If somebody is mentally defective and has sex with somebody, no matter their age, it’s illegal to have sex with a mentally defective person,” he said, before bizarrely adding: “In all actuality, she is the victim.”
The distraught father has alleged that the underage boy was the one who seduced his daughter and even took her virginity.
“That boy found her [social media] account, found her dancing like a 13-year-old on it and said, ‘Hey, girl, I’ll Uber you to my $5,000-a-month apartment - come on and hang out,’" he claimed “And then when she got there, she never said she wasn’t 14 to him, but he knew her real age, and he knew she was mentally unstable."
According to him, the unnamed boy “hid” Zinger in his family's house for five months, and introduced her to his friends, four of whom would become additional alleged victims in the state’s case against her.
“They all were like, ‘Hey, this girl is 14,’ wink, wink, high-five, high-five, ‘Your turn, bud,’” Josh said, adding that “this all will be proven in court."
“There will be no plea deal, there will be no sex offender registry, she’ll get time served and adios,” the father continued. “When we go to court, we’re going to chem ‘em all up, flip this around."
Zinger remains in jail on charges of lewd or lascivious battery, lewd or lascivious molestation, possession of child pornography, in-state transmission of child pornography by an electronic device, and sexual cyber harassment, all felonies.
Her trial is scheduled to begin on May 26.
A lawyer has opened up on what it was like to speak to Elizabeth Siders, the mom in the Ohio 'house of horrors' case, where 16 children were found in conditions similar to the "third world."
The kids, aged between 18 months and 18 years old, were discovered in the feces-filled rural home by the Vinton County Sheriff's Office in Ohio on June 30.
More details have emerged since the home was found in a horrific state, as the children were described as being "kept in worse conditions than livestock”.
The children were found in a 12-by-12 room which was crumbling, as investigators noted that the children had also suffered “serious physical harm.”
Investigators said that the crime was an "intrafamily" case, suggesting that some of the children in the house may have come from sexual relations within the family.
But now, a lawyer has opened up on what the mother of these kids was really like.
The attorney representing Elizabeth Siders has spoken out about how she was following her arrest.
His description surprisingly doesn't fit into the negative coverage of both her and her husband's parenting, as the attorney admitted she looked "distraught".
Thomas Stolly spoke with her for an hour and a half after she was taken into custody, telling Criminally Obsessed that she seemed "exhausted" during their meeting.
"I had no idea what I was walking into. I saw the same headlines everyone else did. At one point, the term 'pure evil' was used to describe Elizabeth and the home, and at another point, there was a comment that livestock had been treated better," he said on the show.
"I met a woman who was timid and who was exhausted. It looked like she had been crying quite a bit. She looked distraught. And she was willing to talk to me. Able to talk to me."
Stolly said he left out the fact that the case was being heavily covered by the media, as he realised that she had no idea about how the story was being covered.
He said: "We sat down for about an hour and a half to go through the basics of this case. I asked her if she had seen any of the coverage that has been online for the better part of a day now.
"She hasn't. She does not know how the home, the conditions, the investigation is being described."
He said that this was due to how "fragile" she looked at the time, adding that she didn't fit the narrative which was built around her.
"[She's] not someone who comes across as 'pure evil,' because evil requires malice," he said, further adding: "The person that I saw there, Elizabeth, she doesn't have that in her eyes."
A relative also said that he wasn't aware of there being 16 children in the home, believing there were only 10.
Two of them were sent to specialist trauma centres, while another seven were taken to Columbus Hospitals, with one admitted to the ICU and intubated.
Four family members, believed to be the children's parents and grandparents, Gary Siders Jr, 36, Elizabeth Siders, 33, Gary Siders Sr, 73, and Christina Siders, 77, have been arrested and charged with 16 counts of second-degree felony child endangerment.
All four have pleaded not guilty.
The case is currently under investigation, with all four family members set to appear back in court.
Published 10:10 10 Jul 2026 GMT
The attorney representing the mother accused in the Ohio "House of Horrors" case has disputed some of the claims circulating about the family.
Elizabeth Siders is one of four family members charged after police found 16 children inside a home in Hamden, Ohio.
She, along with her husband, Gary Siders Jr., and Gary Siders Sr., and Christina Siders, have been charged with 16 counts of child endangerment. All four have pleaded not guilty.
Speaking to WBNS10, Elizabeth's attorney, Tommy Stolley, shared details of his first meeting with his client and challenged how the case has been portrayed online.
"There's been no evidence to suggest that the children were locked or forced to remain in the 12 by 12 room. I think this is one of the things that's been really sensationalized by the internet."
Stolley said the mom told him that her kids had phones, with one of the older children using social media and even having "inside jokes."
"I think the big thing with that is it doesn't jive with the way that this case has been characterised in the public," Stolley said. "When you use language like feral kids, you're imagining people that have been isolated away from human contact."
"People who have never interacted with any sort of social media, with the internet, with humans outside of their own home, or even humans in general, who completely lack the ability to use language."
"There's nothing to suggest that that is the case here," he added.
Although Stolley said he had not met the children himself, he revealed the first question Elizabeth asked after he introduced himself "was about her kids" and whether they "were OK."
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The lawyer said he believes all 16 children, who range in age from 18 months to 18 years old, are Elizabeth's and Gary Jr.'s.
According to the attorney, Elizabeth "repeatedly" told him that she and her husband "wanted a big family."
"She said that kids are a gift from God and that she was open to that," he added.
It has previously emerged that the mom married Gary in 2008 when she was 15 years old and seven months pregnant.
Mason County records show her parents, Brian Ray Russell and Lori Ann Raines, consented to the marriage.
The latest developments come after Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer announced on Wednesday (July 8) that Siders Sr. had been released on a recognizance bond following a medical emergency while being transported to a preliminary hearing.
Archer said Siders "fell and had a medical issue that required treatment and assessment."
Doctors later determined he had a "serious medical condition" requiring treatment outside the county.
"We were not going to put that burden on our taxpayers, and so it was agreed that we would do a recognizance bond so he could get the medical treatment that the doctors say he needs and won't cost the county that money," Archer said. "If he's released from then, he will then be equipped with a GPS monitor."
A recognizance bond allows a defendant to be released from jail without paying cash bail.
Stolley has also filed a motion seeking to modify Elizabeth's $300,000 bond to a recognizance bond, arguing that she cannot afford to pay it.
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