John Jefferson
Left inset: Angela Navarro (Lancaster County Jail). Right inset: Zachary Scheich (Nebraska Department of Corrections). Background: Lincoln Northwest High School in Nebraska (KOLN/YouTube).
A Nebraska woman pretended to be a man’s mother so he could trick school officials into thinking he was a student at a high school where he sexually assaulted girls.
Angela Navarro, 23, originally faced up to four years in prison when she was charged with felony criminal impersonation. But that charge was dropped down to misdemeanor criminal impersonation as part of the plea deal. She also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child abuse, records obtained by Law&Crime show.
According to a probable cause arrest affidavit, Zachary Scheich enrolled at Lincoln Public Schools in October 2022 claiming to be a 17-year-old student named Zak Hess. However, he was actually 26-years-old and had graduated from the district some seven years prior.
During the enrollment process, he listed his mother as “Danielle Hess.” He also submitted a fake birth certificate, immunization records and school transcripts.
Navarro later admitted that she accompanied Scheich to meet with a school counselor to register her “son” for classes while pretending to be “Danielle Hess.” Scheich ended up going class for more than 50 days. After receiving a tip, school officials confronted Navarro on June 1, 2023, and she continued to pretend to be Scheich’s mother.
Eventually, cops blew up their scheme and both she and Scheich were arrested. Scheich pleaded no contest in July to first-degree sexual assault, child enticement while using a communication device and generation of child pornography. In September, a judge sentenced him to between 85 years and 120 years in prison, Nebraska Department of Corrections records show.
Navarro is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 16.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the 5 foot 4, 120-pound Scheich contacted multiple students under his phony name. In one case, he sent sexually explicit texts and tried to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex and paid her money for her to send him a nude selfie, according to ABC Omaha affiliate KETV.
“He attended school as a student, he attended classes. That was the initial investigation,” Assistant Chief Brian Jackson said in a news conference. “And as the investigation progressed, we learned of additional contacts he had with juvenile students.”
Authorities were baffled.
“I’ve been in the district for 10 years, and this is the first time that I can remember something like this happening,” Lincoln Public Schools Director of Security Joe Wright told ABC Lincoln affiliate KLKN.
Students were just as surprised.
“I never thought twice about the kid,” one told KETV.
“Just walking in the halls, like a normal student,” another student said, the station reported.
School officials said he enrolled online with “well-crafted fraudulent documents,” prompting them to review the process.
“This individual provided a birth certificate, a high school transcript, immunization records and a physical from a clinic, and it turns out all those appear to be fraudulent,” said Matt Larson, the associate superintendent for educational services at Lincoln Public Schools, in a news conference. “The documents are not verified. We take students’ words for these documents.”
In an email to parents, Lincoln Public Schools said the district received a report about the pretender on May 31 and immediately contacted Lincoln police.
The district’s email said the suspect began attending Northwest High School on Oct. 20, 2022, then transferred to Southeast High School on Jan. 12, 2023.
Jason Kandel contributed to this report.
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