Family of teenage girl allegedly tortured and murdered by man she met on Grindr sues app

Yahoo

21 hours ago

The family of a Florida teenager who was allegedly tortured, murdered and dismembered by a man she met on Grindr has filed a lawsuit, claiming the girl would still be alive if she had never met the man on the dating app.
Miranda Corsette, 16, met Steven Gress, 35, on the app on February 14. Gress and his girlfriend, Michelle Brandes, 37, allegedly held the teen against her will inside Gress' St. Petersburg home before killing her.
Corsette suffocated to death after the couple allegedly shoved a billiard ball in her mouth and wrapped her head in plastic before chopping her up and stuffing her body parts in the trunk of their car.
Months later, a representative of Corsette's estate filed a lawsuit against Grindr, alleging that the features of the app and lack of safeguards for minors contributed to the girl's death.
'Without Grindr, we believe that Miranda would have never met this Steven Gress character, and she'd still be alive,' Attorney Lorne Kaiser said.
'This was a completely foreseeable event. Grinder has been warned for years and years about children and minors getting on this platform, and it's obviously a dangerous platform for children.'
It was alleged that Gress was able to target Corsette through the app because of its 'lax age verification and hyper-precise geolocation.'
'The trauma inflicted upon M.C. (Miranda) and the irreparable harm to her family are direct consequences of Grindr's reckless disregard for the safety of minor children who are routinely preyed upon by adult predators who use Grindr's platform and design as a trap,' the suit states.
According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, Gress and the teen first hung out at the couple's St. Petersburg home on February 14. He drove her home, and then she returned the next day. Gress told detectives that he was told she was 21 but later learned she was 16, according to an arrest affidavit.
It wasn't long before Gress accused her of stealing his ring, which sparked the weeklong abuse and torture, the warrant states.
As Gress allegedly continued to torture Corsette in their home, his girlfriend reportedly found the missing ring in Gress's car. Police said there is no evidence Corsette took the ring.
The torture ended on February 23 when Brandes allegedly shoved a billiard ball into the teen's mouth and wrapped her head in plastic, a witness said. Gress reportedly told her not to cover her nose, but Brandes did, the witness said, and Corsette suffocated.
After she was killed, Gress allegedly put her body in a car and drove to a house in Largo, where police say Gress used a chainsaw to dismember her body. They put the remains in trash bags and tossed them into a dumpster, and police later learned that the contents went to the county's incinerator.
The new lawsuit claims the LGBTQ+ dating app failed to implement safeguards to prevent minors like Corsette from using it.
'Long before February 14, 2025, it was clear to Grindr that it was only a matter of time before its app, as Grindr marketed it and designed it, would cause the torture, rape, and murder of a child,' the lawsuit states.
According to the suit, the app only requires a self-reported birthdate to confirm users are at least 18, with no cross-checking against official documentation or third-party verification at sign-up.
The lawsuit claims the teen's murder 'exposes the platform's gross negligence in relying on a farcical self-reported age verification system. This performative gesture, as absurd as a bar or strip club asking teenagers to state their age without checking ID, allowed a minor to access an adult-oriented platform with foreseeable catastrophic consequences.'
It's also claimed that the app's geolocation services 'deliver hyper-precise, real-time geolocation tracking — accurate to within a few feet — designed to facilitate immediate sexual encounters. As such, Grindr arranges user profiles based on their distance from other users for instant and spontaneous sexual hookups creating a uniquely hazardous environment for minors.'
Corsette's family member is seeking $750,000 and is asking the court to order Grindr to implement more robust age verification measures, like government-issued identification verification or facial age estimation system, and to stop what the suit claims are misleading claims about the app's safety.
Grindr LLC has not yet filed a response to the suit, according to
Gress and Brandes are facing first-degree murder charges for Corsette's death and are being held at the Pinellas County Jail without bond. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty in the case.