A longtime industrial arts teacher at Lapeer High School is facing federal sex trafficking and child exploitation charges after investigators say he paid a 17-year-old girl more than $800 through Cash App for sex and nude images. Corwin Gutenschwager, 48, had worked for Lapeer Community Schools for 25 years before a federal complaint unsealed on October 8 upended his career and landed him in custody in Flint.
According to ClickOnDetroit, federal authorities charged Gutenschwager with sex trafficking of a minor and sexual exploitation of children after a months-long digital paper trail led them to the teen. The case began when Block Inc., the company behind Cash App, flagged 21 peer-to-peer transfers from an account tied to Gutenschwager — using the handle “drumminguy**” — to the victim, triggering an automated tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. That tip reached the FBI on September 22, which routed the case to the bureau's Flint Resident Agency and the Northeast Michigan Trafficking and Exploitation Crimes Task Force, a multi-agency unit that handles regional child abuse cases, per New Media Detroit.
Per the station's report, the Cash App transfers ran from February 7 through April 16, with Gutenschwager sending 21 payments ranging from $5 to $100 and totaling up to $839. Investigators say the teen met Gutenschwager through social media and later met him in person on multiple occasions, with Gutenschwager allegedly taking her to hotels in Flint and paying her via Cash App in exchange for sex, as well as for pornographic images and videos of herself.
Telegram Messages and a Sister's Confrontation
The teen told the FBI that Gutenschwager knew her age because her sister had confronted him directly about their money-for-sex exchanges, the article notes. Investigators say the pair communicated through Telegram, with a chat thread beginning September 20 and continuing through at least October 6, discussing the teen sending sexually explicit content in exchange for payment. A screenshot cited in the criminal complaint allegedly shows an agreement to pay $55 for two videos.
When the FBI executed a search warrant at Gutenschwager's Lapeer home on October 8, he voluntarily provided agents with his phone passcode, after which investigators recovered sexually explicit images of the minor embedded in Telegram chat threads, according to New Media Detroit. During that same search, Gutenschwager confirmed he had worked as a high school teacher with Lapeer Public Schools for 25 years, the same account states.
Admissions Described in the Complaint
According to the same report, Gutenschwager allegedly admitted to meeting between two and five girls over the prior year and paying them for sex, telling agents he paid between $20 and $200 in cash for encounters at Flint hotels and also paid girls online, including through Cash App, for sexually explicit content. He reportedly claimed the girls he met for sex were over 18, while also acknowledging they could possibly have been underage, and said he did not check identification. Investigators separately found additional sexually explicit photos of the 17-year-old in the Telegram conversations during their phone investigation, with content on her device dating back to January 30, when she was 16.
Lapeer County Prosecutor John Miller confirmed that Gutenschwager was being held in federal custody in Flint, with federal authorities taking primary jurisdiction over the child sexual abuse material and minor solicitation allegations, according to The County Press. A federal detention hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at 1 p.m. in federal court in Flint, as reported by Thumbnet.
School District Response and Legal Exposure
Lapeer Community Schools issued a public statement confirming that Gutenschwager had been placed on leave and that the district opened an internal investigation, emphasizing that the alleged misconduct does not appear to involve any students or members of the local school district, per Townsquare Media. Lapeer High School, where Gutenschwager was assigned, serves as the district's main high school and was formed in its current configuration in 2014 after the consolidation of Lapeer East and Lapeer West high schools, according to background compiled by Wikipedia.
If convicted, Gutenschwager faces severe mandatory sentencing exposure under federal law. A conviction for sex trafficking of a minor under 18 U.S.C. § 1591 carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison and up to life imprisonment, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. A separate conviction for sexual exploitation of children under 18 U.S.C. § 2251, which covers the production of explicit visual material involving minors, carries its own mandatory minimum of 15 years for a first offense, per guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Open questions remain about whether additional victims could emerge as investigators continue analyzing digital devices, and whether the Lapeer Community Schools Board of Education will move forward with formal termination proceedings. The federal detention hearing set for Wednesday is expected to be the next public step in the case.
