{"id":359015,"date":"2026-07-31T16:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T16:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359015\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T16:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T16:46:10","slug":"tallahassee-car-chase-suspect-facing-separate-child-sexual-battery-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359015\/","title":{"rendered":"Tallahassee car chase suspect facing separate child sexual battery charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; The suspect in a high-speed car chase through Leon County last month is now facing unrelated child sexual battery charges, according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Zachary Read, 36, allegedly drove a car through Tallahassee one afternoon and hit several vehicles as he tried to evade law enforcement, per previous reporting. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"The suspect in a high-speed car chase through Leon County last month is now facing unrelated...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7Z76FQHYIZEKJKH7DBL7XWCUQM.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>The suspect in a high-speed car chase through Leon County last month is now facing unrelated child sexual battery charges, according to court documents.(Leon County Jail)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Read was taken into custody following the chase and charged with felony fleeing\/eluding, driving with a suspended license and eight counts of leaving the scene of a crash. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The man is now accused of sexual battery with a child over 12 years old but under 18 years old and lewd or lascivious battery. Court documents say that the victim and Read were known to each other before she broke contact due to concerns for her safety. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-center\">More on crime in our area:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The victim claimed Read groomed her and \u201cwould manipulate her into staying with him.\u201d Law enforcement detectives took DNA samples from a pair of shorts worn by the victim during the alleged battery that matched Read.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The charges were signed yesterday and the suspect has remained in jail since last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/07\/31\/tallahassee-car-chase-suspect-facing-separate-child-sexual-battery-charges\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; The suspect in a high-speed car chase through Leon County last month is now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[146380,265,634,115,232,146378,234,233,146379],"class_list":["post-359015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-child-sexual-battery-charges","tag-crime","tag-local","tag-news","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-car-chase-suspect","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-zachary-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}