Former college track and field coach, Steve Waithe, 30, from Chicago has pleaded guilty to a perverse cyber fraud scheme that targeted young women across the nation, using deceptive social media and email tactics to obtain their explicit photos, as confirmed by .
According to the U.S. Attorney for the District of a Massachusetts, the once-trusted authority figure from institutions like Northeastern University and Penn State University manipulated vulnerable student-athletes by claiming to help remove compromising photos found online, only to demand more in what the Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy described as "despicable" conduct, drawing attention to the hurt inflicted upon "dozens of innocent victims" but authorities are ensuring "no one can hide from justice—even anonymously behind a keyboard," showing predators like Waithe just how high a priority community protection is and, in particular, the gravity of cyberstalking.
Highlights of Waithe's fraudulent activity include coercing female athletes into handing over their phones on the pretext of filming practice sessions, only to send explicit content to himself, and the creation of fake female personas pretending to conduct athletic research to further exploit his targets.
Despite hiding behind social media accounts like "anon.4887" and emailing fabricated accounts under names like "Katie Janovich" and "Kathryn Svoboda," Waithe was not clever enough to cover his tracks with an internet browsing history that looked for "Can anyone trace my fake Instagram account back to me?" or "How to Hack Someones Snapchat the Easy Way" leading investigators to connect the dots, according to the reports shared by the Justice Department.
Adding to his cyberstalking account, there was one particular student-athlete Waithe intensely harassed between June 2020 and October 2020, wherein he even hacked her Snapchat account and threatened to leak her private photos—a profoundly damaging act that Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, Jodi Cohen, emphasized can have lasting harm, while expressing gratitude for the victims' courage in not letting fear silence them.
Waithe, who now faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count and additional fines, will have his fate decided on March 6, 2024, by U.S District Court Judge Patti B. Saris.
