Sex video traced to man charged with preying on Grafton girl

A man who according to a criminal complaint unwittingly tipped authorities off to his 2022 sexual assault of a 14-year-old Grafton girl he met online by posting a video on a social media site has been arrested and is being held in the Ozaukee County jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Samael Torres, 25, of Mount Pleasant, was charged Monday with using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, sexual exploitation of a child, two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and two counts of child enticement, all felonies.

The year-long investigation that led to Torres’ arrest began after the Grafton Police Department received a tip on March 14, 2023, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a video of a girl performing oral sex on a man that was uploaded to the instant messaging social media site Discord on Dec. 28, 2022.

Authorities traced the internet address used to upload the video to the account of a Grafton woman. Detective Justin Gehm of the Grafton Police Department found the woman’s Facebook account, where he saw photos of her children, one of whom appeared to be roughly the same age as the victim shown in the video.

Gehm contacted the woman, who authorities said was not involved in uploading the video, and she confirmed that her daughter was the girl shown in the video. The girl, however, did not provide Gehm with any information about the video at that time, the complaint states.

But last month, the girl said she was willing to talk about the video and in a written statement identified the man seen in it as Torres, according to the complaint.

The girl said she met Torres on Instagram, where she posted censored images showing the self-harm she caused herself. Torres contacted her, asking her to post uncensored photos, which she did.

Within a week or less of starting their online relationship, Torres told the girl he was in love with her. She wrote in her statement that she gave in to Torres’ repeated requests to “do stuff” that was sexual during video chats on Discord and he recorded them using a device he plugged into his computer, the complaint states.

The girl said the first time she took her clothes off for Torres during a video call was either in November or December of 2022 when she was 14. She said Torres sent her photos of himself naked.

The girl told a forensic interviewer that she remembered the video was made on Dec. 27, 2022, because that was the first time she and Torres met in person.

Torres traveled to Grafton, rented a room at the Comfort Inn and Suites and went to the girl’s house, where they had hot chocolate. The girl said Torres then asked if they could go to her bedroom, where she performed oral sex on him while he recorded it with his phone. She said he posted it to Discord before they had intercourse, according to the complaint.

The girl said she was uncomfortable with Torres recording the video but didn’t want to say anything to him about it.

She said she was certain that the video was made on Dec. 27, 2022, because she remembered Torres telling her he wanted to have sex with her before she turned 15 a few days later, the complaint states.

Torres returned to Grafton for another sexual encounter, the girl said, and although she didn’t remember the exact date it was during exam week in January 2023.

She said she was walking home from school and Torres was waiting for her in a park. She said he had a THC gummy in his mouth that he wanted to give to her while they kissed, and although she initially resisted, she took the gummy and felt high as they walked to her house.

At her house, Torres gave her a condom, which he did not use when they had sex, and a “Plan B” pill that the girl said she took because she didn’t want to get pregnant, according to the complaint.

Gehm checked records from the Comfort Inn and Suites in Grafton that showed Torres checked in on Dec. 26, 2022, and Jan. 19, 2023, checking out the next day both times.

Last week, the girl gave Gehm a photo of her and Torres standing together outside her house during their first meeting in December 2022. The man in the photo matched Torres’ driver’s license picture. And in the photo, the girl was wearing the same shirt as the one worn by the girl in the video, the complaint states.

After setting Torres’ bail at $100,000 during a March 11 hearing, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Sandy Williams ordered him not to use or possess any device capable of accessing the internet and not to have contact with anyone younger than 18.