Zimmermen, TV newsman-government spokesman-child abuser

DCF Didn't Run Check On Ousted Official by THOMAS W. KRAUSE and CATHERINE DOLINSKI The Tampa Tribune Published: Feb 5, 2008

TAMPA - The state Department of Children & Families is launching a probe into the backgrounds of all of its employees... DCF is combing through its personnel files and running criminal background checks on all agency employees, including those hired before late 2006, when the department began requiring all new personnel to be fingerprinted, agency Secretary Bob Butterworth said at a news conference Monday in Tallahassee. Among those hired before the rule change: Al Zimmerman, 40. He was fired from the agency that protects children after his arrest Friday on charges that he asked two teenage boys to take sexual pictures of themselves. Butterworth said it appears the department chose Zimmerman for the job without contacting his prior employers, which was a violation of department policy. His file also lacks a required state application. Butterworth said he wants to know whether the department has been following hiring procedures and to make sure it does so in the future.

A man makes his living with a camera, graduates to a job where he might eventually get access to a computer database of vulnerable children? Mark that down a an example of career criminal rising.

And the state official who made the decision to hire this creep against the procedures... he ought to be kicked out immediately and I hope he is not another criminal. I hope there isn't a ring of child pornographers in the DCF.