A former Tucson High Magnet School counselor arrested in 2022 on charges of having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student has pleaded guilty.
Zobella Brazil Vinik pleaded guilty Thursday to sexual conduct with a minor and child abuse, the Pima County Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Vinik
Under a plea agreement, Vinik can be sentenced to probation up to more than five years in prison. If she is placed on probation, she will participate in the sex offender treatment program.
“One term of the plea is if sentenced to probation, the defendant must serve a minimum of 15 years probation, up to lifetime, on the sex offender caseload. Another term in the plea is the defendant must serve a minimum of 6 months, and up to 1 year in the Pima County Jail. While probation is available in the plea agreement, if the judge sentenced her to prison, the minimum amount would be 1 year, and the maximum would be 5.75 years,” the county attorney’s office said. “Our focus is on the child victim and their ability to move on, and the plea agreement kept that focus in mind.”
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Vinik was arrested in May 2022 after Tucson police received a report about an off-campus, inappropriate relationship between a student and Vinik, police said at the time. The student had been living with Vinik, according to an interim complaint filed in the case.
Detectives searched the pair’s cellphones and said they found messages that supported a “sexual/romantic relationship.” The sexual relationship allegedly started about four months before the arrest, the complaint said.
Vinik is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 25.
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