BOSTON: According to prosecutors, a former college track and field coach who was accused of creating fake social media and email accounts to deceive women into sending him nude or semi-nude photos of themselves pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston. Steve Waithe, 30, from Chicago, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and one count of computer fraud. In addition, he also pleaded guilty to cyberstalking one victim through text messages and direct messages sent via social media, as well as by hacking into her Snapchat account. A sentencing date has been set for March 6, 2024, with Waithe originally being arrested in April.
Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy condemned Waithe’s behavior, calling it despicable. Levy said, “For almost a year, he manipulated, exploited and in one case stalked young women across the county hiding behind a web of anonymised social media accounts and fabricated personas he engineered. Mr. Waithe maliciously invaded the lives of dozens of innocent victims and inflicted real trauma.”
Waithe had previously worked as a track and field coach at various academic institutions including Northeastern University, Penn State University, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Tennessee, and Concordia University Chicago. Prosecutors claimed that while at Northeastern, Waithe would request the cellphones of female student-athletes under the guise of filming them at practice and meets, only to secretly send himself explicit photos of the women that had been saved on their phones.
According to prosecutors, beginning in February 2020, Waithe used the fake social media accounts to contact women, claiming he had found compromising photos of them online. He would then offer to help the women get the photos removed from the internet, asking them to send additional nude or semi-nude photos that he could purportedly use for “reverse image searches”. Additionally, he invented at least two female personas, “Katie Janovich” and “Kathryn Svoboda”, to obtain nude and semi-nude photos of women under the pretense of an “athlete research” or “body development” study.
Prosecutors also mentioned that a review of Waithe’s browser history uncovered searches such as “Can anyone trace my fake Instagram account back to me?” and “How to Hack Someone’s Snapchat the Easy Way”. A lawyer for Waithe has not yet responded to a request for comment. – AP
