Former NCAA coach gets five years in prison for tricking athletes into sending nude photos

Steve Waithe, a former college track and field jumps coach with Northeastern University, Penn State University and the University of Tennessee, has been sentenced to five years in prison for setting up fake social media and emails in an attempt to trick his athletes into sending him nude photos of themselves.

The 31-year-old was sentenced Wednesday to five years behind bars, pleading guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and one count of computer fraud. He was also found guilty of cyberstalking one victim through text messages and Instagram, as well as by hacking into her Snapchat account.

Waithe reportedly asked for the phones of his female athletes so he could use them to film the women’s form in practice and at meets. According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts, Waithe was seen “scrolling through” athletes’ phones on multiple occasions.

Prosecutors said he also made the fake social media accounts using the names of two female personas “Katie Janovich” and “Kathryn Svoboda” 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 use for “reverse image searches.”

Prosecutors said Waithe “left behind a devastating path riddled literally with dozens of victims,” and called for him to be jailed for 84 months, including the 17 months he has already served since his arrest in 2021, along with 36 months of supervised release. They accused him of getting photos from more than 50 victims and trying to get them from another 72. According to The Boston Globe, a half-dozen of his victims spoke at the sentencing, some using their first names and many appearing close to tears.

Waithe was a former NCAA All-American triple-jumper at Penn State, where he went on to win several Big Ten conference titles and a silver medal at the 2014 North American, Central American and Caribbean Championships (NACAC) in Kamloops, B.C.

After serving his sentence, Waithe will be banned from coaching at the collegiate level and will be listed on the banned coaches list by the U.S. Center for Safe Sport.

posted Thursday March 7th
by Marley Dickinson