A Chicago man pleaded guilty in connection with a scheme to trick women across the country into sending him nude or semi-nude photos using more than a dozen sham social media and email accounts, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
Steve Waithe, 30, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud; one count of cyberstalking; one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud; and one count of computer fraud, aiding and abetting, according to the Department of Justice.
Waithe, who was a track coach at Northeastern University in Boston, requested cellphones of female student-athletes “under the pretense of filming them at practice and at [track and field] meets” and sent himself explicit photos of the students that were saved on their phones, according to the Department of Justice.
Waithe possessed at least one student-athlete’s phone for “several hours” during a track-and-field meet at Harvard University in January 2019, according to a criminal complaint filed in April of 2021.
Waithe was suspected of “perpetrating a scheme to trick then-current and former Northeastern student-athletes into sending him nude or semi-nude photos through the use of sham social media accounts and stolen or otherwise-compromised photos” from about February 2020 to around April 2021, according to the criminal complaint.
Waithe used anonymous social media accounts with usernames like “anon.4887” and variations of the phrase “Privacy Protector” to contact his victims, claiming that he had found compromising photos of them online and offering to “help” get the photos removed from the internet, the Department of Justice said.
Waithe fabricated at least two female personas, “Katie Janovich” and “Kathryn Svoboda,” in an effort to obtain nude or semi-nude photos of women for the purpose of an “athlete research” or “body development” study, according to the department.
He asked for information relating to height, weight, body fat and diet and asked women to send photos of themselves to “track their progress” and recommended that the photos show the women in a “uniform or bathing suit to show as much skin as possible,” the department said.
Waithe was also suspected of cyberstalking at least one female then-current or former Northeastern student-athlete through messages sent via social media and hacked into her Snapchat account from June to October of 2020, according to the complaint.
Waithe’s internet browsing history included visits to webpages with titles like, “Can anyone trace my fake Instagram account back to me?” and “How to Hack Someones Snapchat the Easy Way,” the feds said. His search history also included searches for “how to hack snapchat with a username and phone number.”
Waithe was a track-and-field coach at Northeastern from October of 2018 to February of 2019, according to the criminal complaint. He was no longer with Northeastern following a Title IX investigation into his conduct.
Waithe also worked as a track-and-field coach at Penn State, the Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Tennessee and Concordia University Chicago.
He faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and five years for each of the other counts.
“Mr. Waithe’s conduct is despicable. For almost a year, he manipulated, exploited and in one case stalked young women across the country, hiding behind a web of anonymized social media accounts and fabricated personas he engineered,” acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy said. “He now knows no one can hide from justice — even anonymously behind a keyboard.”
Contributing: Andy Grimm
