by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
March 11, 2024
The 31-year-old has been sentenced to 5 years in federal jail for his years-long “sextortion” of feminine athletes beneath his mentorship and girls on-line.
Steve Waithe, a former observe coach for Northeastern College in Boston, has been sentenced to 5 years in federal jail for his years-long scheme of tricking ladies into sending him specific nude pictures.
Waithe started teaching for the school in 2018 and commenced stealing photos from his gamers as he filmed them throughout follow. He used numerous strategies, listed by the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the District of Massachusetts, to acquire these pictures from over 50 feminine victims unjustly.
After Waithe stopped working on the college in 2020, he used faux social media accounts to trick ladies into sending him nude or sexualized pictures. Pretending to be a lady, Waithe persuaded his victims to ship the photographs so he might carry out “reverse picture searches” and take away them on the web.
Waithe even contacted athletes at his former employment, pretending to hold out analysis for physique improvement. He inspired the younger ladies to ship photos that uncovered “as a lot pores and skin as doable” within the scheme.
His ruse continued after his arrest in April 2021, main him to plead responsible to a number of expenses, together with 12 counts of wire fraud and singular counts of pc fraud. The 31-year-old was additionally convicted of cyberstalking a lady.
Six of his victims testified throughout his trial, however over 170 ladies had been contacted total by Waithe in his years of sexual exploitation and harassment. Prosecutors additionally emphasised how the previous coach took benefit of those that seemed to him as a “mentor” determine.
“To lots of the victims on this case, Steve Waithe offered himself as a relatable coach and mentor. To different victims, he was a piece colleague or a random acquaintance. To nonetheless others, he was thought-about a childhood pal,” shared the prosecutors, in a report obtained by NBC 10. “Nevertheless, by the point of his arrest in April 2021, Steve Waithe was to all of those ladies just one factor: a predator set on exploiting his place and relationships for his personal pleasure.”
Upon his conviction, the appearing U.S. Legal professional Joshua Levy known as his actions “deplorable,” noting how his “sextortion” scheme has left a number of ladies with trauma.
“This defendant’s conduct is deplorable,” shared Levy mentioned in a press release. “He exploited his trusted function as a coach to school athletes to have interaction in a sextortion marketing campaign that has left a path of emotional devastation in its wake. We stand by the brave victims who got here ahead and assist this Workplace maintain Mr. Waithe accountable.”
