A senior Facebook executive caught in a vigilante pedophile sting last week was allegedly grooming a supposed 13-year-old boy with sick sexual texts, messages obtained by DailyMail.com reveal.
Jeren Miles, a 35-year-old data center community development manager for Facebook company Meta, allegedly arranged to meet 13-year-old ‘Corey’ in a Columbus, Ohio hotel room after texting him that he wanted to ‘suck’ him, have ‘naked cuddles’ and telling him ‘I won’t have any restraint around you if I’m horny.’
Corey was in fact a fake account set up by vigilante pedophile-hunting group Predator Catchers Indianapolis (PCI) – who say police have yet to respond to the evidence they submitted against the alleged predator.
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Jeren Miles, 35, was data center community development manager for Facebook company Meta before he was dismissed last week. He allegedly arranged to meet 13-year-old ‘Corey’ in a Columbus, Ohio hotel room after texting him that he wanted to ‘have ‘naked cuddles’ and telling him ‘I won’t have any restraint around you if I’m horny’
Corey was in fact a fake account set up by vigilante pedophile-hunting group Predator Catchers Indianapolis (PCI) Two members of the group turned up at Miles’ hotel room last Wednesday night and persuaded him to own up to sending the disturbing messages while filming him and livestreaming the footage on Facebook
The video went viral, prompting Meta to fire Miles and launch an investigation, according to a statement from the company which said the seriousness of the allegations against him ‘cannot be overstated’
A man and woman from the group turned up at Miles’ hotel room on Wednesday night and persuaded him to own up to sending the disturbing messages while filming him and livestreaming the footage on Facebook.
The video went viral, prompting Meta to fire Miles and launch an investigation, according to a statement from the company which said the seriousness of the allegations against him ‘cannot be overstated’.
Miles has not been arrested or charged with any crime. Although admitting to sending the texts on video, he did not admit to any specific sex act, nor intending to with any minors.
Texts sent via Facebook messenger and obtained by DailyMail.com show how the six-figure-earning Meta manager allegedly groomed the supposed 13-year-old, telling him he was in a ‘safe space’ while repeatedly steering the conversation towards his twisted sexual fantasies.
Miles started texting Corey on November 22, sending him a private message saying ‘Hey there, do we know each other?’
Corey told Miles he was 13, but the information did not seem to deter the 35-year-old’s sexual advances.
Texts sent via Facebook messenger and obtained by DailyMail.com show how the six-figure-earning Meta manager groomed the supposed 13-year-old, telling him he was in a ‘safe space’ while repeatedly steering the conversation towards his twisted sexual fantasies.
‘Better watch my language with you! Lol. Because you’re a youngin,’ he wrote, adding that he planned to ‘find some trouble to get into… the kind I’d get in trouble for talking to a minor about.’
On December 3, Miles wrote to Corey he was ‘for exploring thing[s] whenever you feel ready,’ and when asked to elaborate by the supposed 13-year-old, he wrote ‘I love naked cuddles on a cold evening. With you pressed up against me.’
In the disturbing messages Miles told Corey ‘It’s about what you want to do that you like, or something you want to try. Safe space here.’
He added a few hours later: ‘I like the sweet cuddles…but I also like to bend a boy over and pound him while he calls me daddy,’ and told the teenager ‘I won’t have any restraint around you if I’m horny.’
Miles arranged to meet Corey while on a work trip in Columbus, and gave the boy his hotel room number at Le Méridien downtown in the city.
When Predator Catchers Indianapolis founder Eric Schmutte and his colleague Shanda Nolley, who was running the fake ‘Corey’ account, showed up at the door he allowed them in, sat down and confessed on camera to sending the messages and having a sexual attraction to the 13-year-old boy.
Miles tried to defend himself, claiming: ‘I was flirting, talking to him. Throughout all of this, there was never any intention of me ever meeting up with him’
Predator Catchers Indianapolis posted pictures from his social media, attached. Also attached an archive of his twitter feed caught on Google cache, he’s since shut down his twitter, facebook and Instagram
‘So you’re ok with talking sexual online as long as you don’t meet the children?’ Nolley asked Miles.
‘This is the one time I’ve done this,’ he replied.
Nolley claimed that despite turning over the shocking text messages to both Columbus Police Department and police in Miles’ home of Palm Springs, California, as well as his videotaped confession she has had no response from law enforcement.
Palm Springs police spokesman Mike Casavan said ‘Nothing has been reported to us with that name.’
But Nolley shared a screenshot of an email sent to PSPD officer Miguel Torres on February 17 at 9pm reporting the alleged grooming and providing the text messages to the department.
Columbus Police Department did not respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.
When contacted by phone, Miles hung up. A man who answered the door at a property the Facebook senior manager bought in 2019 said he did not know Miles and declined to comment further.
Neighbors said Miles lives at the property and rents it out to holidaymakers at weekends.
A spokesman for Meta said: ‘The seriousness of these allegations cannot be overstated.
‘The individual is no longer employed with the company. We are actively investigating this situation and cannot provide further comment at this time.’
Miles arranged to meet Corey while on a work trip in Columbus, and gave the boy his hotel room number at Le Méridien downtown in the city
In an interview with DailyMail.com, Nolley said she works with around 15 volunteers who have together allegedly exposed around 200 pedophiles since the organization was founded in March 2020, including about 80 herself.
Nolley said in order to get the most compelling evidence against their targets, the alleged predators ‘have to initiate the initial conversation, they must initiate the sexual conversation, and initiate a meet up.’
‘Once that happens, then we confront them and ask them why they’re having this conversation,’ she said.
‘We are finding that a lot of these men are repeat offenders. These are serious predators who are online, preying on our youth.
‘We want these guys behind bars for a very long time.’
Nolley said her organization has seen child sex offense convictions against men they reported to cops after catching them in their stings.
An Indiana high school band teacher was convicted of child solicitation after texting sexually graphic messages to someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl from Muncie, Indiana.
Brian J. Boyer, 40, told the girl to ‘just act like you are one of my former students.’ When he arrived at the school to meet her, he was faced instead with Nolley, 34, and Schmutte, 35.
Boyer took a plea deal for 18 months jail time and a further two and a half years’ probation under ‘intense’ supervision.
‘It’s a success, but definitely we need to see stricter laws for these predators,’ said Nolley. ‘That’s not enough time.’
PCI is one of two chapters of Predator Catchers Incorporated, a registered 501c(3) charity.
Nolley, whose day job is as a financial manager for a construction firm, said all its volunteers are unpaid and their operations are funded by donations.
She is one of several members whose job is to pretend to be minors and catch pedophiles sexting and soliciting.
Predator Catchers Indianapolis founder Eric Schmutte and his colleague Shanda Nolley (above), who was running the fake ‘Corey’ account, showed up at the door he allowed them in, sat down and confessed on camera to sending the messages and having a sexual attraction to the 13-year-old boy
She said her ‘decoy’ alter-ego Corey had also ensnared several other alleged predators, including one woman, but that Facebook deleted Corey’s account after the video of Miles’ confession went viral on Wednesday – meaning important evidence was lost.
‘It’s unfortunate, because I did have other predators that were ready to be caught on there,’ she said.
Nolley said the group’s YouTube channel has also been warned by YouTube for breaching its terms of use.
‘After all this went down, we got two strikes on our main YouTube channel,’ she said.
‘We get one more strike and they delete the channel. It’s hard for us to find platforms where we can share this information. We’re trying to educate communities and bring awareness to this issue.’
