Vanished Teen Last Seen With Sexual Predator Released After Leftist DA Screw-Up

A missing Virginia teenager was last seen with a 39-year-old man who once avoided serious prison time thanks to a sweetheart plea deal despite admitting to sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy.

The Fredericksburg Police Department said Thursday that 17-year-old Autumn Van Zandt was last seen on May 19 traveling with career criminal Ronnie Reel and that they were potentially “attempting to travel out of state.” Reel faced previous criminal charges in July 2021 for child sex assault, but those charges were downgraded after the judge said that leftist Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office failed to turn in evidence on time. 

Instead of facing life in prison for sodomy and aggravated sexual battery, Reel took a plea deal in September 2022 that released him for time served on a misdemeanor assault and battery charge. That plea deal emerged after a judge said that Descano’s office missed a deadline to turn over evidence to Reel’s legal team and could not include two recorded confessions as part of their case, Fox5 reported at the time. 

“He was confessing every little detail that he did, and it was making me sick to my stomach,” Amber, the victim’s mother, said of the recording of her phone call with Reel. “It was horrible. He literally confessed to me why he did it.”

Descano’s office disputed the judge’s ruling that they failed to properly provide evidence for the case in a timely manner, pinning the blame on the judge. His office told The Daily Wire that the judge “made a novel ruling that discovery was turned over too early yet denied the prosecutor’s motion to continue. We prosecuted the defendant based on the remaining evidence available.”

“We acted immediately in response to this novel ruling, and notified all prosecutors that discovery must now be submitted again in Circuit Court  — even if it was already conveyed in a lower court … according to the law, the remedy for such a dispute is a routine continuance — which was sought by our prosecutor and denied,” Descano’s office said at the time. 

The victim’s family disagreed. 

“A man would be sitting in jail right now if they just didn’t assume. Because that’s what they did. They assumed it would be OK not to send in the paperwork again,” Amber said.  

Descano, whose campaigns have been funded by George Soros groups, has long faced scrutiny over his handling of criminal cases. In recent months, his office has released multiple suspects who went on to be charged with murder. 

His office released 32-year-old illegal immigrant Abdul Jalloh before he went on to be later charged with murdering 41-year-old mother Stephanie Minter. In a similar case, alleged MS-13 gang member Marvin Morales-Ortez was arrested for murder one day after being released by Descano’s office.

Fredericksburg police are asking for anyone with information to send in tips. Van Zandt is described as standing 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing 135 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a black top and jean shorts with a red purse and has a heart-shaped tattoo on the side of her hip.