Man who met Greensburg girl on TikTok bought her an Uber to Philadelphia and sexually assaulted her, police say
A Philadelphia man is facing a slew of charges, including kidnapping, trafficking and indecent assault, after investigators said he bought an Uber for a 13-year-old Greensburg girl he met on TikTok and sexually assaulted her when she got to his apartment.
Greensburg police said the investigation began on March 14 when a mom reported her 13-year-old daughter had run away. The mom said her daughter had written a note that said, "I promise I'm safe, and please don't look for me."
Police found the girl after they pinged her phone in Philadelphia.
After picking her daughter up, the girl's mother told police that she believed her daughter had met an older man, 19-year-old Angel Lopez, on TikTok and that he had convinced the 13-year-old to sneak out of her house in the early morning hours of March 14 and take an Uber he was paying for from Greensburg to Philadelphia.
According to the criminal complaint, when investigators interviewed the victim, she explained that her relationship with Lopez turned sexual when he asked her to send him explicit pictures. She said she had second thoughts about traveling to Philadelphia, but whenever she expressed her doubts, he told her that if she didn't go through with the trip, he'd kill himself.
The victim told police Lopez started to make sexual advances towards her in the elevator ride to his apartment. She said once inside, Lopez told her to turn off her phone, gave her a weed pen and made her shower before having sex with her.
The victim told investigators that she was "extremely uncomfortable and disgusted," and while Lopez was assaulting her, she pulled out strands of her hair and left them in his bedroom, hoping they'd be found later. She said she wanted to leave, but Lopez told her, "They won't be able to find you anyways."
Police said she was eventually able to escape when she heard voices outside Lopez's apartment. She said she thought that if Lopez tried to chase her, the bystanders would see and call police.
Victim's mom warns other parents
The victim's mom said when she saw her daughter's note, she knew something was wrong and called police.
"There was some things in there, like, 'I love you, Mom' and stuff like that. Like, yeah, that was my daughter. But then there was things that were questionable," the mom, who KDKA-TV isn't identifying to protect her daughter, said.
She says she woke up to a nightmare when her daughter was no longer home and was believed to have run off.
"It's very important that everybody just pay attention to your kids. They do show signs of just putting themself in their room, don't want to do activities that they normally do. Those were things that I noticed, that I ignored. Didn't think that it was anything of it. Then looking back, my daughter was being manipulated by a grown man," the mom said.
She's now warning others about what could happen.
"The thing you need to understand that these girls, they're young, they're going through changes that they don't even know or ever experience. So to be groomed and to be lured, it's very easy to get their attention. So I just want to say, check your kids' social media," she said.
"Because if it was so easy for him to do this to my child, on top of the things that he made her do, to backtrack, to make sure he doesn't get caught. She's not the first one. She's not the first one," she added.
Police detail investigation into Angel Lopez
At a press conference, Greensburg police detective Justin Scalzo held up a stack of over papers that he said represented one day of text messages.
"This is one day of text messages back and forth: 1,862 pages of text messages on one day that he used to entice this child to get into an Uber that he paid for to sneak out of her residence at 12:30 in the morning — something this child probably never would have imagined doing," Scalzo said.
Police said text messages reveal Lopez talked about how much he loved the teen and that he paid for an Uber driver to pick her up to take her to him. They said Lopez then convinced her to leave behind a note, asking her family not to look for her.
"Through the brainwashing techniques and the luring of this child through all these text messages, he convinced her to do that and make a four-and-a-half hour drive from the city of Greensburg to Philly," Scalzo said.
Officials are now asking parents to pay attention.
"Thank God this young lady is alive today. I am pleading with fellow parents in Westmoreland County and beyond, today, when your children get off of their buses, take a look at all of their electronic devices," said Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli. "Look at the apps they have downloaded, and for goodness' sakes, get ready to have difficult conversations with them about their safety and the consequences of those applications on their devices."
Investigators executed a search warrant at Lopez's apartment on Thursday morning. He was arrested and arraigned and will head to the Westmoreland County Jail.
Lopez is facing several charges, including kidnapping, trafficking, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 16, unlawful contact with a minor, statutory sexual assault, interference with custody of children and corruption of minors.
