TAMPA – A former Department of Children & Families employee pleaded guilty today 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 in January 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, admitted to making false statements, which carries up to five years in federal prison.

Zimmerman, 41, was arrested in February 2008 for 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. Officials later said investigators had identified five more victims.

When Zimmerman was arrested, authorities said Hernandez was Zimmerman’s sex partner. Officials said Hernandez, a DCF computer technician, 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. At the time, Zimmerman was 39 and Hernandez was 23.

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, has 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.
At Zimmerman’s insistence, Hernandez erased the computer’s hard drive a couple of days later.

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.

Hernandez’s lawyer, Ethan Way, told U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Jenkins that Hernandez changed his story immediately, telling the truth while still in the car.