Brittany Zamora pleaded guilty to sexual contact with a minor, as well as other charges.
Brittany Zamora was bored, she allegedly told her class.
The Arizona teacher, then just 27, had only joined the Goodyear school as a sixth-grade teacher just the year before, according to court documents. She wasn't going to be at school that day, so she told her students to text her using the app Classcraft, documents show.
It was there, according to the documents, that Zamora and the 13-year-old boy known only as "John Doe" first connected.
I'm bored, Zamora allegedly told the boy. He replied he was bored too. Why don't you come over, Zamora allegedly suggested. On my way over, John Doe answered. "jk," he added.
The conversation transitioned to the school dance, court documents show, and Zamora allegedly asked if John Doe was going. She called herself an "old salty babe," according to the documents.
Authorities say it was the beginning of a clandestine relationship between the two.
On Monday, more than a year after she was first arrested, Zamora pleaded guilty to sexual conduct with a minor, as well as other reduced charges of public indecency and molestation, according to court records. According to court records, Zamora will be sentenced in July.
Below is a look back at the case:
A Weeks-Long Affair?
Things quickly escalated from the first messages between Zamora and John Doe on Classcraft, according to court documents.
Zamora "became more aggressive in her interactions with" the 13-year-old, lawyers for the boy's family say in a notice of claim filed to support a lawsuit the family would later bring against the school district. She "openly flirted with John Doe during recess," according to multiple students.
Their interactions didn't go unnoticed. According to the documents, on Feb. 7, 2018, three students reported what was described by the interim superintendent of the school district as "favoritism" allegedly displayed by Zamora toward John Doe.
Subsequent interviews with students by the school principal show that one thought Zamora and John Doe might be in a relationship, the documents state. The student in question even said that the two had "met up after school." Other students said they had "heard that Zamora and John Doe were dating," according to the notice of claim.
Apparently hearing about the students' comments, Zamora allegedly approached the principal in tears, documents state. She was interviewed, and denied anything sexual had taken place. The principal also spoke to John Doe, according to the notice of claim, and warned him that he and Zamora could not hang out at recess anymore. The boy's parents allegedly were never told, according to the documents.
The first alleged full-on sexual encounter between Zamora and John Doe took place just after Valentine's Day, less than 10 days following the conversations with the principal, according to police. While the boy was staying at his grandparents' house, Zamora allegedly drove over in the middle of the night and the boy snuck out to meet her in her car. They allegedly kissed and performed oral sex on each other, and then parted ways. She allegedly returned the following night and they had sex.
There were allegedly other such encounters, police said, with other instances of misconduct in between.
In another case, Zamora allegedly played a video in her classroom and asked John Doe to assist in operating the device playing the video at the back of the room. She allegedly fondled him sexually while the class watched the video at the front of the room.
Zamora, according to police, told John Doe not to tell anyone. He ended up confiding in a friend, however, whom Zamora later allegedly asked to stand guard in the classroom while she and John Doe had sex.
"They were just doing it," the friend later told police. "It was very uncomfortable."
He was allegedly asked to keep watch the next day during another such alleged encounter, he said. He refused, he told police, but Zamora and John Doe allegedly had sex anyway.
"It's, like, weird how a 27-year-old can, like, love a 13-year-old and do stuff," the friend told police. "It's just crazy.
"She's not a good person."
Arrest
John Doe's stepmother thought he had a secret. According to court documents, she had noticed he'd been acting differently and seemed increasingly tight-lipped. He would often lock himself in his room at night.
It was a notification from Sentry, a cellphone app installed on the boy's phone, that blew the case wide open, according to police. The word "baby" had been coming up repeatedly in conversations John Doe was having.
It was who he was allegedly having a conversation with that caught her eye, the stepmom later said. She recognized Zamora's name.
"It linked directly to my phone, and it picked up certain key words, and anytime those keywords were used, I received a notification so that day, that's what happened, and I saw the conversation where her name was in there," she later told reporters, her voice and face disguised.
When the parents asked John Doe about it, he said the two of them had had sex.
The parents went to the school to report Zamora and the principal called police.
A recorded call between John Doe's parents and Zamora prior to her arrest captures her begging them not to call the cops.
"You’re a child molester, do you understand me?" said the boy's father.
"Why do you say that?" Zamora answered.
Later she asked whether they can settles things "outside."
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, that’s what we can do so I can give you a chance to do it to some other kid, yeah, that’s exactly what we’re going to do ... no," the father replied.
At one point, Zamora's husband, Daniel Zamora, got on the phone.
"Brittany has been a great teacher for a long time," he said. "Five years. She's done so much for so many students. She made a huge mistake."
"Your wife decided to be a monster and prey on a child. She scarred my son mentally. Do you understand what a 13-year-old boy did, having sex with a teacher? Do you get that at all?" the dad asked.
Zamora was arrested March 22, 2018.
Video recorded at the time shows Zamora sobbing as she tells police that she's worried about what might happen to her in jail.
"I’m little," she said. "They’re going to tear me apart."
During her later initial court appearance, she pleaded with the judge for leniency in setting her bond, saying in a timid voice, "I would love to go home to my husband."
A 'Monster'
The boy's parents said that the damage Zamora allegedly did to him only started to sink in after her arrest.
For months, his parents allege, he was groomed by Zamora, who allegedly sent him flirty texts and eventually nude pictures, and exchanged colorful notes with John Doe in class.
"U R sexy," read one of the notes allegedly passed between Zamora and the boy.
In an interview with KTVK last March, the boy's parents called Zamora a "monster."
"He was taken advantage of," said his stepmom. "She was just using him for her own grotesque benefits."
Added his father, "You teach your kids there's no such thing as monsters at all. But in the real world, there are monsters. Brittany Zamora is a monster."
"He's started to express different emotions. He's sad, and slept all day," said the stepmom. "It's starting to hit him, the reality of what actually happened."
Russ Richelsoph of the Davis Miles law firm in Arizona, who represents the now-seventh grader and his family, told Inside Edition last week his clients feel it's important that Zamora be held accountable for her alleged actions.
"They want Brittany Zamora to pay a price to society and they want society to be protected from Brittany Zamora," he said. "They don't want Brittany Zamora to be able to victimize any more children."
The boy's parents filed a civil lawsuit against the school district in January, alleging that school officials were aware of Zamora's alleged misconduct for more than a month before the parents discovered the alleged abuse, as detailed in the notice of claim.
They are seeking $2.5 million in damages. They have not yet commented on Zamora's guilty plea.
The school has not commented on the lawsuit and did not respond to InsideEdition.com's request for comment.
RELATED STORIES
