BOSTON — A former college track and field coach was sentenced Wednesday to five years behind bars for setting up sham social media and email accounts in an attempt to trick women, including some he coached, into sending him nude or seminude 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.
Waithe, 31, 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.
“These weren’t just victims that lost some money. These were people who lost their privacy, their sense of safety and destruction of trust,” Judge Patti Saris said. “Many of them cared for you, Mr. Waithe, and you broke their hearts. It was very much a breach of trust.”
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 has already served since his arrest, along with 36 months of…
