Matt Weiss, a former Michigan and Baltimore Ravens assistant coach, pleaded not responsible to 24 counts of unauthorized entry to computer systems and aggravated identification theft Monday at an arraignment in Detroit, in keeping with ESPN.
In a 14-page indictment, prosecutors mentioned Weiss, 42, gained entry to the social media, e mail and iCloud accounts of roughly 3,300 largely feminine faculty athletes as a way to obtain “personal, intimate photographs that were not publicly shared.”
Weiss’ alleged crimes — which ran from 2015, throughout his Ravens’ tenure, till his 2023 Michigan firing — embrace “state torts of Invasion of Privacy” in Michigan, Maryland and Pennsylvania, the indictment states, together with a separate cost in California.
Michigan fired Weiss as its co-offensive coordinator in Jan. 2023 after the college found he “inappropriately accessed” pc accounts inside its soccer facility, Schembechler Corridor.
Westmont School, which is a 1,200 scholar Christian liberal arts faculty overlooking Santa Barbara, Ca., is likely one of the establishments that had accounts allegedly infiltrated by Weiss.
Jason Tavarez, director of institutional resilience on the faculty, mentioned the FBI contacted the victims related to Westmont.
“Any information utilized in this investigation was done so with the consent of the victims named in this indictment,” Tavarez mentioned.
“When I was talking to the FBI, they said that it was not just us and not just a couple of schools.”
Weiss, a married father of three and Vanderbilt alum, allegedly gained entry to knowledge through the Keffer Growth Providers, a third-party contractor that retains the medical data for some 150,000 athletes at roughly 100 colleges, together with Westmont, in keeping with the indictment.
Prosecutors mentioned Weiss saved notes his victims, together with “their school affiliation, athletic history, and physical characteristics” — together with notes on “their bodies and their sexual preferences” in movies and images.
Two former feminine Michigan athletes, a gymnast and a soccer participant, filed a category motion lawsuit towards Weiss, the college, its board of regents and Keffer Growth Providers over the alleged breach, ESPN mentioned.
Weiss, who spent 12 seasons with the Ravens, will not be charged with publishing, promoting or sharing what he discovered, nor extorting the victims for cash.
His lawyer declined remark to ESPN following the arraignment.
Keffer additionally declined remark to ESPN.
