A former observe and area coach at Boston’s Northeastern University has been charged with working with bogus social media accounts to attempt to trick female student-athletes into sending him nude pictures of themselves
BOSTON — A previous track and subject mentor at Boston’s Northeastern College was arrested Wednesday and charged with applying bogus social media accounts to check out to trick woman college student-athletes into sending him nude pics of themselves, prosecutors said.
Steve Waithe, 28, of Chicago, is accused of producing phony social media accounts to make contact with track and area athletes and presenting to assistance get rid of compromising pictures of them he claimed to have uncovered on the internet.
Starting in at the very least February 2020, Waithe would send out shots he experienced received of the victims and try to persuade them to deliver far more express images to him so he could “reverse image look for,” authorities reported in courtroom documents.
Waithe also would on a regular basis request to use woman athletes’ cellphones at apply and fulfills so that he could movie their sort. 1 sufferer explained to authorities that at least when she saw Waithe scrolling on her phone in its place of recording.
Waithe, who is billed with cyberstalking and wire fraud in Boston federal court docket, appeared prior to a decide in Chicago, and a listening to was scheduled for Friday to ascertain no matter whether he ought to stay detained.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate McClelland identified as Waithe’s carry out “brazen and predatory” and claimed authorities feared he would test to intimidate the victims if unveiled.
Waithe’s attorney, Jack Corfman, pointed out that Waithe has no prison background and reported he is not accused of disclosing the pictures publicly or retaliating from men and women who did not deliver him extra pics.
Corfman declined to remark in an electronic mail to The Associated Push on Wednesday.
Waithe worked at Northeastern from October 2018 right up until February 2019, when, the school claims, he was fired as a consequence of a college investigation into his “inappropriate carry out toward woman college student athletes.”
“Impacted learners had been presented with counseling and other assets. The college also contacted federal law enforcement officers and worked in complete cooperation for the period of the federal investigation,” Renata Nyul, a Northeastern spokesperson, stated in an e mail.
7 months immediately after Waithe was fired from Northeastern, he commenced operating as an assistant observe and field mentor at Concordia College Chicago, the university said in a statement. He labored there less than 4 months and officials have not been given any studies of misconduct through his time there, the college said. But the university said it is reaching out to all athletes Waithe coached to notify them of the case and make them mindful of the possibility to cooperate with the federal investigation.
In one particular scenario, authorities say Waithe contacted a sufferer by an Instagram account and claimed that he was trying to assist individuals whose nude pictures ended up “leaked” get the visuals taken offline. He despatched the victim nude pictures of herself, which she explained to authorities had been saved to her cellphone. She claimed she had offered Waithe her telephone on several occasions to film her sort for the duration of practice, prosecutors explained.
Officers say Google information show that Waithe searched, among other matters, “can an Instagram be traced” and frequented a web site titled “Can everyone trace my bogus Instagram account again to me?”
Waithe is also accused of cyberstalking just one sufferer final 12 months by sending nude pics of her to her boyfriend, hacking into her Snapchat account, and using an anonymized cell phone quantity to textual content her. Authorities say further victims were the concentrate on of a separate plan to get women to mail photographs of him by way of e-mail under the guise of “athlete research” or “body development.”
Waithe despatched e-mails under a feminine persona requesting facts about top, bodyweight and diet plan habits and asked for pics in a “uniform or bathing match to show as considerably skin as probable,” prosecutors mentioned. The emails normally integrated attachments of specific shots of his faux persona as a tutorial and promised to mail the sufferer reward playing cards at the conclude of the analyze, authorities claimed.
Prosecutors say investigators have located far more than 10 victims of the “body development” scheme and recognized much more than 300 express visuals of victims in Waithe’s Google accounts.
Prosecutors say Waithe has also coached at Penn Condition University, the Illinois Institute of Technological know-how, the College of Tennessee.