The former Southern Illinois University professor accused last year of posting videos of himself masturbating in several places on campus pleaded guilty this week to a charge of reckless conduct after admitting he recorded himself doing so in a lecture hall hallway and posted it online.
Kyle Miller, a 35-year-old former professor at the SIU School of Medicine, was the subject of a March 2025 social media exposé led by extreme right-wing online influencer Chaya Raichik, who operates the popular Libs of TikTok account. The thread targeted Miller for sexual content Raichik alleged he was posting under the social media handle @Midwest0tter.
The Libs of TikTok thread garnered more than 3 million views on Twitter/X, singling Miller out and directing national attention toward the university.
Raichik alleged that Miller had filmed himself masturbating in SIU lecture halls, offices, stairwells and hallways and posted the videos across several social media platforms. The thread included screenshots showing a man, who Raichik alleged to be Miller, in various states of undress in recognizable areas of the SIU campus.
The thread came amid an onslaught of targeted social media campaigns from Raichik, who has posted multiple different exposés centered around sexual conduct from educators across the country, especially those who identify as LGBTQ+. It is unclear how she obtained the screenshots, or how she traced them to Miller.
Raichik could not be reached for comment when the Daily Egyptian attempted to connect with her last year. Miller also did not respond to requests for comment after his arrest last year and after his plea hearing Wednesday.
Miller was arrested March 17, 2025, after an investigation by the Jackson County Sheriff's Office just days after the Libs of TikTok thread was posted. Following his arrest, Miller was fired from SIU and released from jail on March 19 under the condition that he was not allowed back on campus.
Miller was originally charged with two counts of public indecency for sexual conduct and lewd exposure, both Class A misdemeanors. He pleaded not guilty, and a jury trial was initially scheduled for October 2025. At the request of Miller and his defense attorney, Christian Baril, the trial was postponed until December, then removed from the jury trial docket as the case returned to case-management proceedings, according to court records obtained by the Daily Egyptian.
Nearly six months later, prosecutors made Miller a plea offer in which the two original public indecency charges would be amended to two counts of reckless conduct. Reckless conduct is also a Class A misdemeanor, but is not classified as a sex offense under Illinois law. Public indecency charges, however, are classified as a sex offense, and could require sex-offender registration upon a third or subsequent conviction.
On Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026, Miller entered a negotiated guilty plea to only the first count of reckless conduct. By doing so, he admitted to "endangering the safety of another person, by any means lawful or unlawful, in that he recklessly performed an act of sexual conduct and recorded himself masturbating in a hallway located in Pulliam Hall on the Campus of Southern Illinois University,” according to an amended information sheet detailing the charges to which Miller pleaded guilty.
The amended charge does not identify any person whose safety was endangered or explain how Miller’s conduct endangered anyone. It also does not establish that Miller admitted to Raichik’s broader allegations involving other campus buildings and locations, nor does it identify Miller as being the operator of social media accounts under the name @Midwest0tter.
The plea only applies to one instance in Pulliam Hall.
The second reckless conduct charge was dismissed. Jackson County Judge Steven Bost ordered Miller to pay $1,000 in total fines and court costs. An SIU spokesperson said that Miller is no longer banned from campus.
Jackson Brandhorst can be reached via email at jbrandhorst@dailyegyptian.com. The Saluki Local Reporting Lab is a collaboration with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.