BOSTON — A former Northeastern College observe and subject coach pleaded responsible Tuesday to expenses involving a scheme to steal nude images from the cellphones of ladies athletes and dupe younger ladies on the college and elsewhere into sending him such photos.
Steve Waithe, 30, pleaded responsible in Boston federal court docket to expenses of wire fraud, cyberstalking and laptop fraud associated to an enormous effort to trick dozens of younger ladies throughout the nation into sending him compromising images.
Assistant U.S. Lawyer Adam Deitch mentioned in court docket that Waithe’s scheme victimized no less than 50 ladies. Deitch mentioned he plans to hunt greater than three years and 10 months in jail for Waithe.
Waithe labored at Northeastern from October 2018 to February 2019, when the college fired him, and had beforehand coached at Penn State College, Illinois Institute of Know-how, College of Tennessee and Concordia College Chicago.
Prosecutors mentioned that whereas at Northeastern, Waithe requested ladies athletes if he may use their cellphones to take video of them throughout practices and meets and would then covertly search for images of the ladies that he despatched to himself.
After leaving Northeastern, Waithe contacted six athletes utilizing Instagram accounts with names like “privacyprotector” saying he discovered compromising images of them on-line and needed to “assist” take away them from the web, prosecutors mentioned.
Prosecutors mentioned Waithe despatched the ladies nude or semi-nude images he had stolen and requested they ship further ones so he may conduct “reverse picture searches.”
None supplied photos, Deitch mentioned. However, with the assistance of a hacker, Waithe stole nude photos of one of many Northeastern athletes saved on her Snapchat account and cyberstalked her, Deitch mentioned.
Below aliases, Waithe additionally emailed ladies in varied U.S. states for a phony “physique improvement” examine and requested images of them in a “uniform or bathing go well with to indicate as a lot pores and skin as attainable,” prosecutors mentioned.
Whereas some ignored his emails, no less than 17 ladies responded, sending him 350 nude or semi-nude images, in keeping with the indictment. U.S. District Decide Patti Saris is because of sentence Waithe on March 6, with most of the victims planning to attend.
Protection lawyer Jane Peachy estimated her shopper deserves as little as two years and three months below federal sentencing pointers. Waithe, who was first charged in 2021, would obtain credit score for the 14 months he has already spent in custody.
