Elderly man who falsely claimed responsibility for Charlie Kirk shooting charged with obstruction of justice, child pornography

George Zinn, 71, the man who was arrested and detained in the moments right after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but was later released as he was not the shooter, was booked on charges of obstruction of justice as well as possession of child sex abuse material.

According to a press release from the Utah County Sheriff's Office, "At Utah Valley University, Zinn was attending an event where a shooting occurred. Shorty after that shooting occurred, and while people were fleeing the area, Zinn was see yelling that he had shot Charlie Kirk. UVU Police took Zinn into custody and transported him to the UVU Police department. At that time, Zinn was not cooperative with Law Enforcement and did not want to speak with Investigators. Zinn began to have a medical issue and was transported to a local hospital. While at the Hospital Zinn did freely state that he was not the shooter but yelled he was to hinder Law Enforcement’s response."

Authorities added that while Zinn was at the medical center, he admitted to authorities that he yelled that he was the shooter in order to help the real suspect get away. "During the interview, the Agents asked to look at Zinn’s phone and Zinn agreed to let them. Zinn told the Agents that he uses his phone to view and abuse Child Sex Abuse Material and there may be some images on his phone. Those Agents did see several images on the phone of prepubescent girls scantily dressed," authorities added.

During a review of Zinn's phone, there were at least 20 images of children ages 5 to 12 years old in different sexual poses as well as in varying stages of undress. Zinn was also sharing the images with others and was involved in very sexually graphic message threads.

"Zinn admitted to UCSO SVU Investigators that he gets sexual gratification from viewing and sharing the CSAM images with others, and that his preferred victim age is 5 to 12 years old," police said. He is being held in Utah Count jail.