PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Arizona’s Family Investigates an alarming wakeup call from two Valley parents who helped police catch a pedophile who’s now in prison for sending graphic video & images to three elementary school boys in Scottsdale.
They’ve asked us to conceal their identity as their son was only 11 when he became one of at least six others as young as 10 in at least three states, lured by the same man through the popular video game Fortnite.
And the one thing these parents did to ensure police and prosecutors got enough evidence to put him away for a very long time is a lesson for all of us.
“There were no busted-in doors, no broken locks, no shattered glass, but our home was violated. It rocked us and changed us forever,” the Dad said.
Mom and Dad say they only had basic birds and bees and stranger danger talks with their son before he had his first sexual experience with a man who was 13 years older than him online. The details are disturbing.
“This was so grotesque, so over the top, so sexual in nature, it didn’t even cross my mind this is something we would have to deal with,” Dad said.
They had parental controls in place and thought we were doing everything right.
“We checked his phone. We checked his computer,” Mom said. They even paid for extra safety apps and features. “Unfortunately, technology is very difficult to make bulletproof,” Mom said.
Nothing could have prepared them for the stranger who singled out their son. “It would not have occurred to me to say, ‘And if a man shows you his penis, this is what you should do,” Mom said.
Their son is on the autism spectrum with ADHD. “So playing games & being online was sort of his outlet,” Dad said. Fortnite is his favorite game.
That’s where he met 24-year-old Jacob Lozano, from Florida, who Maricopa County Prosecutor Maggie Toth says lied about his age to groom pre-teen boys for sexually explicit conversations and encounters online.
“He moved them from Fortnite to Discord, and it started happening very, very quickly,” Toth says the digital evidence is irrefutable. “It was incredibly graphic. What he would videotape and send to them were things no 11-year-old should ever have to see,” Toth said.
That popular platform, Discord, lets hundreds of millions of users share videos and live chat by clicking a simple button to bypass so-called age restrictions.
“It would go from talking about sexual acts openly to, ‘What do you like to do to yourself?’ And then, ‘Why don’t we do it while we’re talking to each other?” Mom said.
Lozano didn’t have a criminal record, but no one does until they’re caught. That’s why what these parents did as soon as they found out made all the difference in helping detectives build a case.
“Scottsdale Police Department was able to identify the boys in Arizona, a boy in California, and two 2 boys in Georgia. There are more unknown victims,” Toth said.
Mom and Dad were on vacation when Grandma entered their son’s room before school. “She said, ‘I saw a picture of male genitalia on his computer, what should I do?”
Mom checked her emotions, locked down her son’s apps and accounts and contacted the police, who took over his gaming console.
Detectives were able to get Lozano to incriminate himself further, confirming he knew their son was only 11.
“I knew we want to preserve everything that’s been said and sent because if we weren’t very careful about it, then we could lose all the information that would tell us the extent of what he’d been exposed to,” Mom said.
And while there is a mountain of digital evidence, including explicit videos showing Lozano’s face, they will never know the full extent of his depravity because he didn’t record all the live chats. “Unless it’s being recorded, it’s gone,” Toth confirmed.
Discord’s platform guidelines spell out policies banning sexual content targeting children:
They also say they “do not scan direct messages and group chats” for any illegal content.
Detectives discovered Lozano had been flagged for uploading Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on Snapchat in 2022.
No criminal charges ever came of those inappropriate interactions with multiple other minors.
“He would have spent at least 170 years in prison,” Toth said they got Lozano extradited from Florida on a grand jury warrant for 14 counts of child sexual exploitation.
After a year in custody, he pleaded guilty to five felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and attempt to commit aggravated luring of a minor for sexual exploitation. He was sentenced to 32 years in prison and lifetime probation as a Level III sex offender.
Detectives say Lozano not only lied to the boys about his age to befriend them, but he also sent cash and PlayStation gift cards to some of them in exchange for sexual videos.
“They know that these may not be things that they want to do, so if I say, ‘I’m going to send you a gift card for $100,’ well, then maybe I’ll do it,” Toth said. “We heard from the detective that one child, he even delivered a pizza to his house!” Mom said.
“I will never forgive myself for this happening under my nose,” Dad said.
To protect your kids online, experts suggest you:
- Set screen time limits and check their accounts
- Watch for red flags, like sneaking to play or hiding their screens
- No matter how young your child is, if you are letting them on any social platform, tell them to come to you if anyone shows them or talks to them about body parts covered by a bathing suit.
“As awkward as it might be, as difficult as it might be, as busy as you might be, you still have to do it,” Dad said.
Their son is in counseling. They say he was solicited again by a stranger on the video game Roblox, not long after they allowed him back online. They say it’s been a challenging balance. While they want to protect their son, they don’t want him to feel as if he’s being punished for what happened.
“I think it’s not ‘if’ this will happen, but probably ‘when,” Mom said. That’s why you can’t let anyone else beat you to those pivotal talks with your children.
“The only thing that’s really going to save you is to have these conversations with your kids. Nothing is going to replace your direct parenting intervention,” Dad said.
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