A Wayne County man is now facing serious federal charges for his interactions with a 13-year-old girl. Isaac Ethan Lopez, 22, of River Rouge, was arrested for alleged crimes involving child pornography after authorities say he exchanged money for nude photos of the teen through Snapchat, as per documentation from the U.S. District Court. The teen, from Arizona, and her parents had reported to local police in February 2025 that she was being paid by two people, including Lopez, for explicit images, a scenario detailed in reports by The Detroit News.
Upon receipt of the complaint, an investigation was launched that culminated in Lopez's arrest; in this period, the girl had turned her phone over to the police, but while no explicit chats between her and Lopez were discovered due to Snapchat's auto-delete feature, financial transactions linked the communication to cash exchanges via Apple Cash, a detail corroborated by other outlets including ClickOnDetroit. According to court documents, Lopez initiated contact with the girl on Snapchat and proceeded to ask for nude images in exchange for money, at one point receiving confirmation of her age as 13 but continuing with his requests.
Lopez, who also sent a nude image of himself to the teen, now faces charges related to the receipt, possession, and production of child pornography. The investigation, led by the FBI, ultimately connected Lopez to the transactions after tracing the Snapchat account's associated email and phone number, and after executing a federal search warrant on August 8, 2025, investigators seized multiple phones from Lopez's residence, as noted by CBS Detroit. During an interview with the FBI, Lopez confirmed that he remembered paying the teen for the images, but he claimed ignorance of her age, despite the evidence suggesting otherwise.
Authorities discovered a "hidden" folder on one of Lopez's devices that seemed to contain hastily deleted sexually explicit images and videos of young girls, many fitting federal standards for child pornography, according to the documents obtained from courts. This escalation of evidence has solidified the charges against Lopez, who, as reported by The Detroit News, is set for a detention hearing. His attorney, Richard M. Shulman, stated that he hasn't been provided with evidence and claimed any further commentary would be premature; he reinforced the notion that his client is "entitled to a presumption of innocence" until the government meets its burden of proof, as expressed in another statement given to the publication.
