Snapchat messages reveal inappropriate sexual relationship, suspect arrested
Photo: Francisco Cortes (Santa Rosa PD)
SANTA ROSA // Police have arrested a man on suspicion of sexual assault after discovering evidence of an inappropriate sexual relationship between him and an 11-year-old girl on Snapchat.
On December 21st at around 2:30 AM, the girl’s father called police after seeing a man in his backyard shining a flashlight into his daughter’s bedroom. Responding officers quickly discovered a vehicle being driven without its headlights on, and the father positively identified him as the man who’d been in his backyard.
Francisco Cortes was booked at the County Jail on a charge of peeping, for which his bail was set to $1,000. His vehicle was also impounded.
The next day, the father arrived at the Police Department, concerned that Cortes had sexually assaulted his daughter. He had looked into his daughter’s Snapchat account — which she’d set up using a family member’s phone — and discovered thousands of messages, some of which were sexual.
On December 29, when Cortes went to the Police Department to recover his vehicle, he was arrested.
Santa Rosa PD reports that Cortes is either 24 or 28, having provided inconsistent information and dates of birth during various brushes with law enforcement in California.
He has since been booked at the Sonoma County Jail on a felony charge of aggravated sexual assault of a minor, for which his bail has been set to $1,000,000.
The case remains under investigation.
