Houston Uber driver charged in child sexual assault case, investigators say

A Houston Uber driver is facing felony charges after investigators say a grocery delivery to a girl’s home led to Instagram contact and repeated sexual assaults on a teenager. Jermaine Trevor McDaniel was charged June 8 with sexual assault of a child and promotion of child pornography after a missing-child case turned into a criminal investigation.

The girl was first reported missing in November 2025. Detectives say McDaniel met her while delivering groceries as an Uber driver, then stayed in contact with her through Instagram before and after the encounters. Prosecutors say the assaults happened multiple times, and investigators later recovered videos depicting the assaults as well as child sexual abuse material.

The girl’s mother found McDaniel’s Instagram account after her daughter disappeared and gave that information to investigators. Detectives then identified him through law-enforcement databases, tying the social-media account to the delivery worker who had come to the girl’s Houston home.

McDaniel remained in the Harris County Jail on bonds totaling $200,000, and his next court appearance was scheduled for Aug. 10. The case puts a harsh spotlight on what can happen when a platform relationship leaves the app itself, especially when a worker moves from a routine delivery into private contact with a minor on social media.

Uber said it permanently removed McDaniel from the platform and is cooperating with law enforcement. The company says it reruns criminal and motor-vehicle checks every year and uses continuous monitoring to flag new criminal charges between annual checks. Uber also says it offers safety tools including emergency help, trip sharing, audio and video recording options, and identity verification.

The company has said it was the first in the industry to publish a U.S. Safety Report and that serious safety incidents are rare compared with the total number of trips. But this case involves a delivery interaction, not a standard ride, and investigators say the danger continued after the groceries were dropped off and the contact shifted to Instagram.

The allegations also land against a wider Houston-area backdrop. In January 2026, federal prosecutors charged four Houston-area Uber drivers with kidnapping and sexually assaulting passengers, adding to a string of local cases that have kept rideshare safety under scrutiny. Harris County Sheriff’s Office and Harris County District Attorney’s Office case-status tools now track the formal court process in McDaniel’s case as it moves forward.