Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic information. (Steven Gress/Michelle Brandes photos via the St. Petersburg Police Department)
GULFPORT, Fla. | A federal judge sided with Grindr, LLC Nov. 3, ruling that a lawsuit over the murder of a Gulfport teenager should go to arbitration rather than proceed to trial.
The lawsuit was filed in June by the family of the late Miranda Corsette, a 16-year-old Grindr user who was murdered in February. The teenager used the LGBTQ+ application to meet Steven Gress, 35, and his partner Michelle Brandes, 37, who have been charged with 1st degree murder.
The suit accuses Grindr of nine counts, including wrongful death, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and participation in a sex trafficking venture. According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, Corsette was lured through Grindr to meet Gress and Brandes for the first time on Feb. 14 before returning Feb. 24.
SPPD shared March 7 that a dispute occurred between the three and Corsette was murdered between Feb. 20 and Feb. 24. They say Gress then drove her body to a home in Largo, dismembering it and dumping remains in a dumpster in Ruskin.
Gress was already in custody upon SPPD’s release on unrelated charges. Brandes turned herself in on March 8.
U.S. District Judge Tom Barber’s 12-page ruling on arbitration advised that because Corsette created a Grindr account, she agreed to terms and conditions that included arbitration for legal disputes.
He ruled that Grindr “has presented evidence of a presumptively valid arbitration agreement electronically signed by Corsette when she created her Grindr account” and noted that the agreement “broadly covers any dispute, claim, or controversy between Corsette and defendant, and Corsette agreed to resolve disputes through arbitration.”
Read more from SPPD below:
Barber also outlined graphic details in the case against Gress and Brandes, calling their alleged beating of Corsette “extreme” and “torturous.”
“On or about February 24, 2025, Corsette was killed when a pool ball wrapped in a sock was shoved into her mouth, and then her head and face were wrapped in saran wrap, obstructing Corsette’s airways and suffocating her,” Barber wrote. “Following her death, Gress transported Corsette’s body to another location before he dismembered Corsette’s body with a chainsaw. He then disposed of the remains in a dumpster in Ruskin, Florida, which was eventually taken to an incinerator.”
Both Gress and Brandes remain in jail. In its motion to receive arbitration, Grindr noted that Corsette had agreed to Grindr’s arbitration provision three times, having created three accounts. Attorneys for the teenager’s estate objected, citing Corsette’s age.
“No enforceable contract exists between Grindr and 16-year-old Miranda Corsette because Grindr’s terms expressly excluded minors, precluding offer, mutual assent, and satisfaction of the adulthood condition precedent,” they noted in September.
Corsette “had the opportunity to review the arbitration agreement at least three times,” Barber noted. “A failure to comprehend or negotiate arbitration, or unequal bargaining power, does not justify a repeated refusal to read an agreement and should not negate the enforceability of an arbitration agreement.”
Grindr is billed as “the world’s #1 free dating app serving the LGBTQ+ community.”
