Pasco County detectives made an arrest Friday in a case involving a reported attempted child abduction. However, the course of their investigation led them to make a very unexpected arrest.
- Tammy Steffen, 36, originally reported attempted kidnapping
- Steffen arrested Friday, charged with filing false report, falsifying evidence
- Detectives: Steffen practiced with her child scenario played out for deputies
Tammy Steffen, 36, was arrested Friday. She was initially charged with filing false reports, falsifying evidence, and child neglect.
Steffen originally reported the attempted kidnapping on June 14, telling Pasco authorities that a man grabbed her daughter's arm and tried to pull her into the woods behind their home.
Pasco detectives learned, however, that the story Steffen and her daughter told was something the two had been practicing.
"Days leading up to this event Tammy coached her 12-year-old daughter," said Pasco Sheriff's Office Capt. Chris Beaman, "which not only included a walkthrough of where this was to happen or supposed to happen, and help her daughter perpetuate this lie."
"She even went so far as to have her daughter urinate herself to make it be more believable to law enforcement," Beaman explained.
Investigators said they found evidence in the woods, and surveillance video from a Walmart location shows Steffen purchasing a laptop cover, a notebook and pens.
But they never found a would-be kidnapper. Instead, they say the man Steffen described to detectives was her former business partner.
"In her mind, she believed that somehow he prevented her from winning a health or fitness contest online," Beaman said.
Neighbors said they were disgusted by the whole affair, but also relieved a man wasn't running around their neighborhood trying to abduct children.
"I mean, it's not good at all," said resident Harold Pinzon. "It's not good for the neighborhood at all."
Beaman called the situation "ridiculous" and "a waste."
"Not only was it a waste of Sheriff's Office and taxpayer resources," he explained. "It unnecessarily alerted a community that had no business being alerted because it was ridiculous."
New charges
Late Friday the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office announced that Steffen had been re-arrested while in custody at the county jail and charged with tampering with a victim in connection with two phone calls she made to her daughter after her arrest.
According to detectives, in the two phone calls Steffen told her daughter it was "ok to tell the truth" to her father, and to include it was the daughter's idea to buy the items at Walmart and that Steffen gave her the money to make the purchases.
When confronted about the calls and her statements, Steffen insisted she was not trying to persuade her daughter -- only to reassure her that it was ok to tell the truth.
Steffen went on to say that the idea for the kidnapping was her daughter's idea and she went along with it.