How Could You? Hall of Shame-William and Zachary Zulock UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Oxford, Georgia, adoptive parents, William and Zachary Zulock, are “charged with using their two adopted children to record child pornography, police said.

Walton County Sheriff’s Office raided a home in Loganville July 27 on reports that a man there was downloading child porn.

After interviewing the suspect, who was not identified, police said they learned there was another suspect in the county who was “producing homemade child sexual abuse material with at least one child who lived in the home,” the sheriff’s office said Thursday.

Around 11:30 p.m. that same night, executed a search warrant in Oxford at the home of William Dale Zulock, 32, and Zachary Jacoby Zulock, 35.

Walton County’s Division of Family and Child Services joined deputies in responding to the home to help protect the two brothers who lived there.

During their search, deputies found evidence the pair, who were the children’s adoptive fathers, “were engaging in sexually abusive acts and video documenting this abuse,” the sheriff’s office said.

Early the next morning, the Zulocks were both booked at the Walton County Jail.

Both men were charged with aggravated child molestation, sexual exploitation of a child and enticing a child for indecent purposes, WSBTV reported. William Zulock was additionally charged with child molestation.”

Georgia couple charged with using their adopted children to make child porn
[NY Post 8/7/22 by Patrick Reilly]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“Count 16 and Count 17 of the indictment charges the Zulock couple with soliciting 27-year-old Hunter Clay Lawless and 25-year-old Luis Armando Vizcarro-Sanchez, both of Loganville, to engage in “an act of prostitution” with their 11-year-old adopted boy.

Hours before the Zulocks were arrested on July 27, Lawless was apprehended earlier in the day by Walton County detectives on a warrant for felony sexual exploitation of children after downloading child pornography of the older Zulock boy, per an affidavit.

Authorities were tipped off that Lawless uploaded and stored child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on his Google account through an “emergency CyberTip” sent to the nationwide Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force network and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children child protective organization, the affidavit says, noting that “numerous” other CyberTips were generated with the same Gmail address. One of these photographs, which contained metadata indicating it was created with an iPhone on Dec. 9, 2021, showed a prepubescent child being forced to perform oral sodomy on an adult male, per the affidavit. The victim’s age was “ascertained based on physical size/stature size relative to the male’s penis…and facial features.”

During a Mirandized audio-video interview, Lawless admitted that he both knew the sexually abused child was approximately 10 years of age as well as his legal name, the affidavit concludes. At the time the one child pornographic photo in question was created on the mobile device, the Zulock boy was still 9-years-old and would turn the age of 10 a week later on Dec. 15, 2021.

Law enforcement learned from Lawless there was “a secondary suspect” “producing homemade child sexual abuse material with at least one adopted child who lived in the home with the perpetrator,” Walton County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a press release.

Lawless allegedly met Zachary through a mutual contact named “Blake” on Grindr, an LGBTQ hook-up app, and received “numerous” Snapchat messages from Zachary saying, “I’m going to f*ck my son tonight,” and to “stand by” for graphic visuals of the father raping his child. According to what Lawless told police, Zachary also invited Lawless “multiple times” to engage in sexual acts with him and his two adopted kids, but Lawless denied having had any physical contact with the Zulock boys.

While investigators first conducted a search warrant at Lawless’s house, the suspect ID’ed Zachary via his Facebook page. Investigators confirmed through the county’s school system that the child was enrolled there and obtained a home address.

Deputies discovered evidence during the nighttime search-and-rescue effort at the Zulock mansion that “the adoptive fathers of the sibling pair residing in the home were engaging in sexually abusive acts and video documenting this abuse.” Police also found clothes in the child’s bedroom that matched what the boy was wearing in the CSAM that Zachary allegedly sent Lawless.

Lawless, the son of a hairstylist who lives with his mother, was quickly released two days after his arrest and has been out on $25,000 bond since July 29. No one picked up the phone when Townhall called the Lawless household and his mom’s hair salon.

Vizcarro-Sanchez, the other accused pedophile who was allegedly solicited by the Zulocks to engage in prostitution with their son, is facing a plethora of unrelated charges, including felony enticing of another child for indecent purposes. A warrant issued for Vizcarro-Sanchez’s arrest on Sept. 2 says he acknowledged sending a 13-year-old boy, who resided within the same home as Vizcarro-Sanchez, pornographic videos of other children he believed to be the victim’s age as a means to coerce the child.

The nature of Vizcarro-Sanchez’s relation to the victim and their living situation are not yet apparent.

Vizcarro-Sanchez, a former Kroger employee, is also charged with multiple counts of felony computer theft, felony shoplifting, and theft by taking at the Kroger supermarket location in Loganville after the ex-retail clerk was allegedly caught on the grocery store’s surveillance footage conducting fraudulent sale transactions of $50 to $200 Apple iTunes gift cards, Nintendo Wii gift cards, Sony gift cards, and consumable goods at a cash register while he was working shifts between December 2018 and July 2020.

Affidavit statements allege that Vizcarro-Sanchez manipulated the computer terminal by using unauthorized store coupons and hijacking another manager’s override code to “write off” the shoplifted items as paid for, then pocketing the stolen merchandise.

Now making a meager $425-per-week working some unknown occupation, Vizcarro-Sanchez is being represented by a court-appointed public defender on all theft charges, as well as the sex crimes against children, after the state declared he is indigent.

Vizcarro-Sanchez is smirking in his mugshot taken upon booking at Walton County Jail and remains detained pending bail.

A quick look into Vizcarro-Sanchez’s digital footprint shows he’s an avid gamer obsessed with anime. His current Facebook cover photo portrays a fictional character from a Japanese anime series who “strives to bring justice to the world” while his YouTube channel has clips of himself playing the Street Fighter-style video game. Before his short-lived Kroger gig, Vizcarro-Sanchez once attended the state championship for a popular Japanese trading card game to battle out who is “the best Cardfighter in Georgia.”

Zachary, the cameraman whose cell phone allegedly contained a folder—titled “US”—storing videos of his husband, William, sexually abusing their older son, confessed in a recorded police interview to sending child pornographic material of the “routine” sexual abuse to “less than a dozen people.” Zachary, whose Snapchat username is advertised on Instagram, has unopened Snapchat chats with many men, according to a concerned family member who was granted access to his social media accounts.

Aside from Lawless and Vizcarro-Sanchez, there are other potential co-defendants in the ongoing Georgia criminal case that are still under investigation and “out there” distributing videos of the Zulock boys, Alcovy Judicial Circuit District Attorney Randy McGinley, who serves Walton County, told the court at a Sept. 7 bond hearing, according to a transcript provided to Townhall.

Could the Zulock couple face federal charges? How far-reaching is the pedophile ring and will other members be unmasked?

“We decline to comment,” a public affairs officer in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia replied when Townhall inquired if the U.S. Department of Justice has any interest in investigating and prosecuting a federal case against the Zulock co-defendants. Last year, Georgia’s DOJ office pursued a handful of child sex crimes-related cases in its jurisdiction.

Child pornography is illegal contraband under federal law, which prohibits the production, distribution, importation, reception, or possession of child sexual abuse imagery, and federal jurisdiction is implicated if the offense occurred in “interstate commerce,” as the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), whose mission it is “to protect the welfare of America’s children and communities by enforcing federal criminal statutes relating to the exploitation of children and obscenity,” explains. Federal jurisdiction “almost always applies when the Internet is used to commit a child pornography violation,” according to the DOJ.

Child sex trafficking is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 1591. “Most people think of ‘trafficking’ as involving movement across state or international borders. However, Section 1591 does not require proof that either the defendant or victim crossed state or international lines,” per the DOJ. “When the victim is a minor, Section 1591 does not require proof that the defendant used force, threats of force, fraud, or coercion, or any combination of those means, to cause the minor to engage in a commercial sex act.”

Following the armed raid, a sign on the Zulock mansion now says: “Do not enter. Property of the Walton County Sheriff’s Office.”

At the September bond hearing, Judge Jeffrey L. Foster mentioned the prosecution possibly proceeding forward under the child sex trafficking statute of the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act known as O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4.

“Having been proceeding under RICO—I don’t know if they are proceeding forward under the child sex trafficking statute, but there are collateral, civil opportunities that the state can proceed [with],” Foster told the Zulock couple’s criminal defense attorney John E. Haldi, who was questioning the seizure’s legality. “So their assets have been seized pending the resolution of those.”

To combat “the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements,” the Georgia General Assembly adopted the RICO Act and developed the state’s RICO statute from the existing 1970 federal law that’s designed to take down organized crime in the U.S.

The state must prove that the defendant facing RICO charges committed two or more predicate crimes and that such predicate acts were committed as part of an “enterprise” engaging in a “pattern of racketeering activity.” As listed by O.C.G.A. § 16-14-3, “racketeering activity” can be defined as including prostitution, “keeping a place of prostitution, pimping, and pandering.”

In Georgia, the state also possesses the power to impose civil remedies. A judge may order a defendant to give up any business interest or property that was gained through a RICO violation, according to the Atlanta-based Pate, Johnson & Church law firm.

The custom-designed Zulock mansion, which was suspiciously constructed within half a year, was seized after a probable cause seizure warrant was signed by a judge. Before the Oxford mansion’s construction, the Zulock couple lived with the boys in a small-scale Snellville house. The couple’s wealth allegedly materialized after the boys moved in. DA McGinley’s office, which handles forfeitures—considered civil proceedings—has filed a civil complaint seeking to forfeit the Zulock couple’s property.

But, at the local level, the Zulock co-defendants were not charged with RICO Act violations or child sex trafficking.

“My office has reviewed the case and recommended to the Grand Jury what charges were appropriate based on the law and the facts…” DA McGinley wrote in an email to Townhall discussing the 17-count indictment. “Sex trafficking was not charged and neither was a violation of the RICO Act. Again, that is based on the facts and circumstances of this specific case and the law.”

Zachary had contacted a few out-of-state gay Facebook friends to reconnect after getting the boys, the family member told Townhall. The relative also noticed Zachary, who follows gay pornographers in Atlanta with his Twitter account “@GAbottomguy,” appeared to have been “testing the waters” in several relationships, asking in Messenger chats if his friends were happily cuffed.

The couple took an excessive amount of family trips, the source said, staying at a number of Airbnbs across America. Just before July’s police bust, in May and June 2022, the Zulocks enjoyed a lengthy Airbnb stay in Chicago, Illinois. While sight-seeing, the couple donned Pride gear and Zachary focused on photographing tourist attractions that signaled support for LGBTQ inclusion.

Between those two months last year, the Zulocks also went to Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Gulf Shores, Alabama, a go-to vacation spot for gay tourists as well as the Zulock family. (The couple was considering buying a condo there, too.)

During one of the family’s excursions in May 2018 to a Gulf Shores pizza place, Zachary had drawn a rainbow circle around a portion of a children’s menu for kids ages 12 and under that jokingly quipped: “Children Unattended Will Be Sold As Slaves!”

“Also with [the boys],” Zachary wrote in the tongue-and-cheek Facebook post about child slavery.

Zachary also posted a questionable photo in August 2020, captioned: “Waiting for #pizza.” According to journalist Andy Ngo, the phrase could be a dog whistle for pedophiles seeking child exploitative material. Reports say child predators have typed “cheese pizza” as code for child pornography, and pizza emojis are reportedly used to find, sell, and trade images of child sexual abuse.

Other destinations over the years include New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a cabin in Pigeon Forge, Tennesee.

The nationwide road trip also took the Zulocks to the nation’s capital, where in September 2019, in addition to a White House tour, the Zulock family took a selfie in front of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

HRC is a prominent LGBTQ+ advocacy group, the largest gay lobbying civil rights organization of its kind within the U.S.

At the beginning of last year, the couple ordered a massive, framed map of the United States showcasing “The Adventures of The Zulock Family,” which Zachary had planned to mount to a wall somewhere in their mansion. “It’s bigger than I thought…got to find a place to hang it and start pinning where we have gone!!!” Zachary exclaimed in an early January 2022 post on Facebook.”

“Family members now suspect that the Zulocks censored their children’s faces to evade law enforcement’s detection technology.”

Part 2: Just How Big Was the Operation Led by the LGBTQ Couple Who Abused Their Adopted Sons?
[Townhall 1/18/23 by Mia Cathell]

“Townhall has learned that seven years prior to the adoption, Zachary was accused of being a child rapist, but was never charged.

More than a decade ago, there was a 2011 probe into Zachary’s alleged pedophilic behavior when he was accused of luring a 14-year-old boy to a residence in Walton County, the same jurisdiction as today’s horrifying child sexual abuse case, and having anal sex with the underage victim. But, the 2011 child rape case was shut down and no charges were pursued against Zachary.”

“In 2018, the Zulock co-defendants adopted the two brothers through All God’s Children, Inc., a now-defunct private special-needs adoption agency in Watkinsville, which focused on children in the state who have “waited the longest” to be placed with a family.

All God’s Children matched families with special-needs children “considered more difficult to place because they are older, need to be placed with their siblings or have physical, mental or emotional/behavioral challenges,” reads the agency’s overview.

The brothers, now ages 9 and 11, already came from a broken home where their biological parents were addicted to heroin, per a relative’s knowledge. “I do think they had every intention, and this is why they adopted them for this purpose,” another family member, who spoke exclusively with Townhall out of concern for the sibling pair’s well-being, expressed. William and Zachary “preyed on” the children’s vulnerability as kids raised by struggling heroin addicts, Townhall’s family insider asserted.

As well as undergoing criminal background checks, William and Zachary were required to attend mandatory pre-adoption parenting classes called Parents as Tender Healers (PATH) trauma-informed training curriculum to “learn more about parenting children with a history of losses.” An agency caseworker also completed a family assessment, which was presented to social workers throughout Georgia for match-making, and a home study of the Zulocks. The entire undertaking took eight to 12 weeks.

Seven months after the boys moved in on March 30, 2018, Georgia’s courts made the “forever family” official on Nov. 7, 2018.”

“Flash forward to this past summer, the county’s DFCS office was “notified about the need for emergency protective placement for two young children” and joined Athens-Clarke County Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Program (ACC-SANE) advocates, who provided forensic medical attention to the abused Zulock boys, in the midnight July rescue operation at the family’s mansion.

Both boys were placed in DFCS custody. “They made us give up our parental rights on Aug. 1…” William, who signed over custody of the children to the state at an August hearing, said in a recorded jailhouse call shared with Townhall.”

Part 3: How Did an Accused Child Rapist Adopt Two Children?
[Townhall 1/19/23 by Mia Cathell]

“According to a copy of the 17-count indictment Townhall has obtained, the adoptive dads allegedly performed oral sex on both boys, forced the children to perform oral sex on them, and anally raped their sons. In at least one instance, the anal rape injured the older Zulock child, who just turned 11-years-old in mid-December. Court records indicate that the child sexual abuse stretches back to as early as late 2019 and intensified in January 2021, March 2021, and December 2021, as the offense dates are listed.

The brothers were enrolled in third and fourth-grade, respectively, before the men were caught in a midnight July bust at the Zulock mansion, which ended with Zachary tackled to the ground and William hauled out of the house naked by armed officers.”

“William admitted to forcing his 11-year-old adopted son to perform an act of sodomy, a.k.a. “oral copulation,” on him “with the intent to satisfy his own…sexual desire,” reads a sworn affidavit filed in support of William’s overnight arrest back on July 27.”

“An updated criminal affidavit says the child sexual abuse was filmed by William’s husband Zachary, “with whom he routinely engaged in sexually abusive acts” on the boy. Zachary, the household’s breadwinner, confessed to being the cameraman, and authorities allegedly found a folder on his cell phone — labeled “US” — that contained videos of William sexually abusing the child.”

“The indictment also charges the Zulock co-defendants with soliciting two other men, through the use of popular social media platforms, in the Greater Atlanta metropolitan region to “perform an act of prostitution” with their child that suffered physical injuries from being brutally raped. Townhall is the first to publicly identify these two alleged members of a pedophile ring in the heart of the Peach State: 27-year-old Hunter Clay Lawless and 25-year-old Luis Armando Vizcarro-Sanchez, both of Loganville.”

“Lawless, who snitched on the Zulocks, told local law enforcement he received “numerous” messages via Snapchat from Zachary about “f*cking [his] son tonight” and to “be prepared” to receive images as well as videos of the father raping his adopted child.”

“”I’m going to f*ck my son tonight. Stand by,” Zachary allegedly messaged Lawless on Snapchat and then sent pictures of himself sexually abusing his 11-year-old child. After he was busted, Lawless denied having had any physical contact with the Zulock boys but told law enforcement officers that Zachary invited him “multiple times” to engage in sexual acts with him and his two children.”

“Nestled within a suburban paradise, the Zulock mansion turned-“house of horrors” had surveillance cameras installed in “every square foot” of the property, the family member told Townhall. There was also a “secret,” windowless room the size of a closet without any doors hidden behind a moveable bookcase in the home office that the cops left open, which felt like something out of “a horror movie,” the relative said. Another “creepy” interior room devoid of windows was purportedly used as a “home theater.””

This gay activist couple allegedly raped the boys they adopted from a Christian special-needs agency, pimped them out, and boasted about it on social media
[Not The Bee 1/18/23 by Joel Abbott]