Mom Speaks Out About 13-Year-Old Daughter's Alleged Online Sex Abuser

Caption: Matthew Smith, 47, of Burbank, IL, accused of sexually abusing 13-year-old girl. | Cook County Sheriff

A Peoria mom says she knew something wasn’t right a year ago when she discovered sexually explicit text messages on her 13-year-old daughter’s cell phone with someone she had befriended on the Internet.

The text message read, “Baby, I can’t pick you up. I don’t have gas money.” Scrolling up, she found nude photos and a video that her daughter allegedly sent to the 47-year-old Burbank man who is now charged with sexually abusing her.

“He put in a text message for her to send him a video of her dancing naked,” Corina Reyes said, a single mother works as a concierge in a Peoria hotel.

“I’m 33 years old so I’m not that far removed from when technology first came around. I thought I knew enough about the Internet and all the new apps to keep her safe,” she said.

Unfortunately for Reyes it was not enough. Her daughter’s alleged abuser, Matthew Smith, a self-employed landscaper, has been charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault after his arrest by Burbank Police last week.

According to Cook County prosecutors, Smith had unprotected sex with the girl multiple times over a two-day period. He also admitted to police that he knew the girl was 13. He is currently being held in lieu of $1 million bail at Cook County Jail.

It wasn’t Reyes’ first encounter with Smith, who had moved her daughters from Chicago to Peoria “to prevent something like this from happening.” When she discovered the explicit text messages on her daughter’s phone last year, the girl insisted that the person she was sexting was a 16-year-old boy.

Reyes claims she did her own sleuthing and found a Facebook profile where Smith allegedly identified himself as an Illinois high school student. Reyes turned her daughter’s smartphone and tablet over to Peoria Police.

“They didn’t do anything about it,” she said. “If they did their job we wouldn’t be here right now.”

A relative gave her daughter a Lifeline Assistance phone, also known as an “Obama phone,” that only allowed voice and texting.

After that first brush with the law, Reyes claims that Smith from Shelbyville blocked her daughter from his Facebook page. They moved their communication over to the Kik messenger app.

“I knew this guy wasn’t 16, but was older,” Reyes said. “I tried to do everything I could to scare her. I told her, ‘this guy is older than your father.’”

The morning of June 8 when the taxi arrived at her uncle’s home in Cicero, Reyes claims that Burbank Police found a text message on the girl’s Obama phone that read, “This is our time to shine. Your taxi is on the way.” Reyes says she also learned from Burbank detectives that Smith was listed in her daughter’s contacts as “Daddy.”

“The morning she left, half of the house was asleep while the other half was at work,” she said. “She took her sister’s wallet that had $40 in it. When police found her only a dollar was left.”

Authorities were able to trace Smith to Burbank. According to Reyes, when Burbank Police called him early last Wednesday morning, Smith “freaked out” and put her daughter on the street.

The girl walked around Burbank for a few hours, trying to flag down police officers on 79th Street. She went to a gas station not too far from Smith’s apartment and asked the clerk to call the police.

“The clerk told her there was a pay phone outside,” Reyes said. “My daughter told him, ‘no, I need you to call police.’”

[For the record, Patch verified that there is a pay phone at this location.]

Prior to last week, Reyes believes that her daughter had never met Smith in person, but sometime during their online relationship learned that he was older than a high school student. She describes her daughter as shy, studious, who acts younger than 13.

“She still plays with animal toys,” the girl’s mother said. “She talks to them and makes noises for them. When her older sister was 13, she was on a different track.”

Reyes also doesn’t believe that her daughter went to Smith’s apartment to have sex. On their way to Chicago to spend the summer with her uncle, Reyes said her daughter asked if she could join “Passion for Purity” through her uncle’s church that encourages teens to save themselves for marriage.

For now, her 13-year-old daughter is back at home in Peoria. Reyes says her daughter is physically okay, but mentally she is not.

“The police told me not to question her about it, so I just leave her alone with it,” Reyes said. “I’m more trying to ask what I can do to help her.”