A Miami church driver asked a 13-year-old girl for nude photos. He’s in jail

A driver for a Miami-area church tasked with picking up a 13-year-old girl has been jailed for initiating an inappropriate relationship with her and soliciting nude photos, according to police.

On Nov. 3 a concerned mother took her daughter to the police station after finding inappropriate messages on her phone between her and Daniel Elvin Ortiz-Cruz, 23, according to his arrest affidavit.

“...if you are not going to respond anymore delete this chat and send me a screenshot, be careful, pinky promise,” the message written in Spanish read. The chat had disappearing messages on. The mother also found several logged video calls between the two.

The mother told police her daughter had been attending children’s religious classes at Ministerio Internacional Jesús El Salvador, located at 2300 NW 23rd St, sometime in 2024 and Ortiz-Cruz would pick up the girl around 6 p.m. and drop her off around 11 p.m. every week.

The girl told police she met Ortiz-Cruz because he would pick her up every day and take her to a children’s church class, according to the arrest affidavit.

Ortiz-Cruz then began to message her with the texts becoming more and more sexual with him eventually asking her to send him nude photos.

A forensic extraction of the girl’s phone revealed dozens of conversations on WhatsApp between her and Ortiz-Cruz, with him always asking her to delete the messages.

The girl at one point did send nude photos of herself at Ortiz-Cruz’s request with him again telling her to delete the messages and send him a screenshot as proof.

Ortiz-Cruz was taken into custody outside the church on Monday and was hit with eight felony charges. Court records show he remains jailed as of Wednesday on no bond and is on an immigration hold.