NOTE: This story was originally published by our News Collaborative of Central Florida partner Vox Populi.
Michael Lincoln-McCreight, who gained notoriety for yelling the N-word at a Black 7-Eleven employee in a video that went viral on TikTok, is in trouble again.
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The Republican candidate running to represent District 41 in the Florida House was arrested March 3 by Orlando Police and charged with two counts of first-degree misdemeanor battery after he allegedly twice pushed a woman named Zoey Summer Freed against a wall and put his hands around her throat, “asking her if she liked it,” according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Battery can be a misdemeanor or a felony depending on its severity. First-degree misdemeanor battery is punishable by a year in prison or a $1,000 fine.
A public defender was assigned to Lincoln-McCreight’s case March 24. The arrest warrant affidavit notes Lincoln-McCreight is “transient.” A separate court case indicates he was evicted in August 2025 from the Metrowest apartment he had shared with two roommates for nonpayment of $2,340.07 in rent.
No court date has yet been set in the battery case.
‘Those were all false accusations’
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Freed, who said the two had been dating for about three weeks, waited until Lincoln-McCreight, 30, was out of town to report the two incidents to police because she “was afraid of Lincoln because he is autistic and has severe anger issues.”
The first incident occurred the night of Jan. 24 when Lincoln-McCreight in a “random and unprovoked” act, “pushed her against a wall and placed his hands around the base of her neck area while asking her if she liked it.”
The second incident occurred two weeks later on Feb. 8 when the two were making Uber Eats deliveries. This time the two were in an elevator when Lincoln-McCreight shoved her against a wall and put his hands around her throat.
Freed stated in the affidavit that although she could breathe during both incidents and told Lincoln-McCreight that she liked it, she told police that she only went along with what she thought might have been a “sexual kink involving choking” because feared that he could “choke her out at any time because of his aggressive tendencies.” She added that before these incidents, the two had talked about touching around the neck and had “mutually agreed that no choking would occur.”
Lincoln-McCreight denied Freed’s accusations in a phone interview Monday, saying, “ Those were all false accusations, okay? First of all, I would never lay a hand on a woman. That’s not who I am.”
Lincoln-MCreight told VoxPopuli that the two were not in a romantic relationship and that he believes Freed’s report was politically motivated.
“[She] file[d] that report to ruin my political career because of that N-word video, if you get what I’m saying,” he said.
He thinks the case will get eventually be dropped.
“I didn’t do anything. There’s no video footage,” he said. “On top of that, I was in Tallahassee when the warrant was issued, so there’s no way I could do an assault to her, a battery to her when I was up in Tallahassee. We were doing Uber Eats at the time, but I never choked her or hurt her in any type of way. … Of course she’s a girl, so, you know, law enforcement will probably take her side. But I’m … I’m pretty sure there was no marks or anything on her ‘cause I didn’t … I didn’t choke her.”
However, another case, now closed, was filed in September 2025 by a woman named Trinity Rain Irby, who sought a protective injunction or restraining order against Lincoln-McCreight for sexual violence. Lincoln-McCreight said those were “false accusations as well.”
“None of that is true. You know, she had a disability, and I basically was taken advantage of because I helped her with stuff like ordering Uber Eats, Ubering, Door Dash, you know, being a good person that I am, right?”
Lincoln-McCreight said that when he said “no to some stuff,” that’s when she turned against him. “She didn’t even show up to the court hearing. That showed none of the stuff was true ‘cause she didn’t even show.”
Court files for that case are non-public so the scope of what led to the request for a restraining order is not fully known. The court docket shows the request was eventually dismissed and the hearing was canceled.
‘It’s because I’m Republican’
Lincoln-McCreight told VoxPopuli that “all this” is because he is running for office as a Republican.
“This is what I’m feeling like, because if I was running as a Democrat, none of this probably would be happening,” he said.
“A lot of people are not liking what President Trump is doing. It’s making it seem like because I’m running for the state house seat as a Republican that’s why all these things are coming up to play, and that’s what I’m thinking,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lincoln-McCreight’s arrest prompted the exit of his campaign manager Oliver Rupp — who said in a Facebook post announcing her resignation that she also was his girlfriend and that he had “proposed to me last Christmas.”
Lincoln-McCreight confirmed that the two were engaged.
The Hebron, KY-based Rupp, 21, told VoxPopuli that she had been appointed campaign manager after the last campaign manager quit following the N-word video scandal.
Rupp dropped 36 photos and screenshots of text conversations showing Lincoln-McCreight’s participation in the polyamory dating community in the Facebook post, lambasted the deception on a personal and professional level and said she was “signing off” as “former campaign manager.”
Lincoln-McCreight said it was “hard to do in the middle of the campaign,” but he was in the process of getting a new local campaign manager.
“I’m not a bad guy, you know what I mean?” he said. “If I’m elected, I’m gonna be a great state House rep. It’s just a lot of these things are happening, and, you know, it’s going to come to light because, you know, the charges are gonna get dropped. I know it because, like, I didn’t do it.”