Ex-college track coach to be sentenced for tricking women into sending nude photos

BOSTON (AP) — A former college track and field coach could face nearly seven years behind bars when he is sentenced Wednesday for setting up sham social media and email accounts in an attempt to trick women into sending him nude or semi-nude photos of themselves.

Steve Waithe, who coached at Northeastern University in Boston, Penn State University, Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Tennessee, and Concordia University Chicago, pleaded guilty last year to 12 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and one count of computer fraud, prosecutors said.

The 31-year-old Waithe 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, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Waithe “left behind a devastating path riddled literally with dozens of victims” and have called for him to be jailed for 84 months, including the 17 months he’s already served since his arrest, along with 36 months of supervised release.

The memorandum from prosecutors includes testimonials from several victims, including one who described being “targeted, groomed, preyed on, and repeatedly violated.” Some were student athletes whom he was supposed to coach and mentor.

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Several victims are expected to speak at Waithe’s sentencing.

“To many of the victims in this case, Steve Waithe presented himself as a relatable coach and mentor. To other victims, he was a work colleague or a random acquaintance. To still others, he was considered a childhood friend,” prosecutors wrote. “However, by the time of his arrest in April 2021, Steve Waithe was to all of these women only one thing: a predator set on exploiting his position and relationships for his own pleasure.”

Waithe’s attorney asked for a sentence of 27 to 33 months followed by three years probation, saying the son of Trinidadian parents had accepted full responsibility for his actions. He was an All-American track athlete at Penn State.

“He feels great shame for his actions, which have garnered national publicity, and is humbled by the experience of going from a highly revered athlete to felon/inmate,” Jane Peachy, Waithe’s attorney, said in a sentencing memorandum, which also included a letter of support from his parents.

While a track coach at Northeastern, Waithe requested the cellphones of female student-athletes under the pretense of filming them at practice and meets, but instead covertly sent himself explicit photos of the women that had previously been saved on their phones, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said starting as early as February 2020, Waithe used the sham social media accounts to contact women, saying he had found compromising photos of them online. He would then offer to help the women get the photos removed, asking them to send additional nude or semi-nude photos that he could purportedly use for “reverse image searches,” prosecutors said.

Waithe further invented at least two female personas — “Katie Janovich” and “Kathryn Svoboda” — to obtain nude and semi-nude photos of women under the purported premise of an “athlete research” or “body development” study, investigators said.

He also joined sites that allowed him to connect with others to distribute the stolen images and trade sets of images with other users.