Year in jail for ex-Tucson High counselor in student-sex case

A former Tucson High Magnet School counselor will spend a year in jail and 15 years on probation under a plea agreement in a student-sex case involving a 15-year-old girl.

Zobella Brazil Vinik, 31, was sentenced by Pima County Superior Court Judge D. Douglas Metcalf on Monday to one year in jail and four years of probation for sexual conduct with a minor under a plea agreement accepted in August. Vinik also was sentenced to one year in jail and 15 years of probation for child abuse.

The judge ruled Vinik will not have to register as a sex offender as long as she completes her probation.

Vinik’s jail sentences will run concurrently.

The girl’s stepmother told the judge that Vinik had helped the victim with homework and other personal struggles. But those things, she said at the sentencing Monday, do not make up for what happened.

Deputy county attorney Lacee Collins said the relationship between Vinik and the girl was inappropriate and should have never happened. She then noted that as someone in the education system, Vinik had training on how actions like this could affect children.

“The damages are unmeasurable and irreparable,” Collins said. “None of it is OK, and none of it is the victim’s fault.”

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Joshua Hamilton, Vinik’s attorney, said there was no excuse for what his client did. However, Hamilton said Vinik has owned up to her crimes and said it was a “very serious mistake.”

“She doesn’t deserve forgiveness now, but is on the path to,” Hamilton said.

Vinik was arrested in May 2022 after Tucson police received a report that month about an inappropriate, off-campus relationship between her and a student.

The student had been living with Vinik, according to court records.

While searching the cellphones of Vinik and the teen, detectives found messages they said supported the existence of a “sexual/romantic relationship” between the pair.

The relationship, police have said, started about four months prior to Vinik’s arrest.

Vinik resigned from Tucson High a few days after police launched their investigation.