A former University of Michigan football coach has been charged for allegedly hacking female athletes’ accounts to steal photos.
Weiss, 42, was charged with 14 counts of unauthorized computer access and 10 counts of identity theft after purportedly hacking thousands of accounts to download intimate photos and videos, according to an indictment filed in federal court Thursday.
Between 2015 and 2023, Weiss gained access to the databases of more than 100 colleges and universities that were being maintained by a third-party vendor, and then downloaded personal information and medical data of more than 150,000 athletes, the indictment states.
He used the information and “research that he did on the internet” to guess or reset the passwords for the social media, email and cloud services accounts of more than 2,000 athletes and more than 1,300 students or alumni from a number of schools, according to the indictment.
“Weiss primarily targeted female college athletes,” the indictment said. “He researched and targeted these women based on their school affiliation, athletic history and physical characteristics. His goal was to obtain private photographs and videos never intended to be shared beyond intimate partners.”
Some of the accounts were hacked multiple times.
If convicted, Weiss could face up to five years in prison on each count of unauthorized access and two years on each count of aggravated identity theft, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Weiss, the team’s quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator, was originally put on leave in January 2023 while the school’s police department investigated unspecified computer access crimes. He was fired a month later for not cooperating with the university’s investigation but no additional information about Weiss’ crimes were made public. Ann Arbor police searched his home shortly after he was fired.
The coach worked for the Baltimore Ravens from 2009-2000 before joining the Michigan staff in 2021. Before that, he worked at Stanford University.
With News Wire Services
