News — US

Prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts have accused a former Northeastern University track and field coach of tricking several female student-athletes into sending him their nude photographs.

According to a press release, 28-year-old Steve Waithe was arrested on Wednesday. He was arraigned in court the same day on the charges of one count of cyberstalking and one count of wire fraud.

Per the charging documents, Waithe worked as a track and field coach at Boston’s Northeastern University between October 2018 and February 2019. During his time at the institution, prosecutors say he regularly tricked female athletes into giving him their phones under the guise of “filming their form at practice and at meets.” While he had their phones in his possession, he was occasionally seen “scrolling through” them.

Prosecutors also say Waithe masterminded a scheme where he tricked female athletes at the university into sending him either nude or semi-nude photos of themselves. Through fake social media accounts, Waithe would allegedly get in touch with the victims and tell them he has discovered “compromising” images of them on the internet and would then play the good Samaritan by offering to “help” remove the said images online. Using that frame-up, Waithe would then ask the victims to send him either nude or semi-nude photos of themselves so he can use them for “reverse image searches,” the statement said.

In addition to the aforementioned allegations, Waithe is also accused of cyberstalking at least one female student-athlete at the university. Prosecutors say he did that “through messages sent via social media, an anonymized phone number and intrusion into her Snapchat account.”

“The investigation revealed that internet search and browsing history tied to Waithe allegedly included searches for information on how to hack Snapchat accounts and visits to webpages with titles like, ‘Can anyone trace my fake Instagram account back to me?’,” the statement added.

The accused, however, did not stop at that. Prosecutors said Waithe also emailed victims asking them to send him their photos under the guise of “athlete research” or “body development” study. Using aliases, Waithe would ask the victims to send him photos of themselves in a “uniform or bathing suit to show as much skin as possible.” He would also tell them that their photos won’t be circulated or saved, going as far as even attaching a sample image to illustrate the kind of photo he wants them to send. Over 300 nude and semi-nude photos related to the so-called “study” were discovered in Waithe’s email accounts and over 10 of his victims were identified, prosecutors said.

Besides Northeastern University, Waithe was also a former track and field coach at a host of other institutions including the University of Tennessee, Penn State University, Concordia University and Chicago Illinois Institute of Technology.

Waithe would appear in court again on Friday for a judge to rule if he should remain in custody following an argument by prosecutors that he could possibly attempt to intimidate his victims if he’s granted bail, The Associated Press reported. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate McClelland also labeled his actions as “brazen and predatory.”

Waithe’s attorney, however, argued his client has a clean criminal history and he hasn’t been accused of publicly sharing the images or going after people he did not receive photos from. The accused faces up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine for the cyberstalking charge. He also faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine for the wire fraud charge, prosecutors said.

Many Black people and other minority groups feel insecure under the administration of Donald Trump. Yet the U.S. president has done little to reassure them of their safety. He has in the past refused to condemn white supremacists and in situations where he offered a condemnation, he did so reluctantly.

Concerned about the safety of Blacks in the US, former rapper, producer and DJ in the 1970s, John Fitzgerald Johnson, also known as Grand Master Jay, has formed a militia group to protect the Black community.

The Not F*cking Around Coalition (NAC) intends to carry out its activities of protecting Blacks before and after the U.S. election in the face of a growing threat from white supremacists and police brutality against unarmed Black men.

In a recent podcast, Grand Master Jay vowed to protect the rights of Black voters who may be intimidated by white supremacists at the polls. “I think that everybody needs to climb down out of their emotional tree, and remember that it is against federal law to show up at a voting place with weapons and intimidate anybody,” he said on “Run and Tell This podcast.”

“If the United States government doesn’t want to enforce that law against people that doesn’t look like us, they’re not going to enforce it against us. We have no intentions of starting a confrontation or firefight over this vote.”

According to him, the Black community feel disenfranchised by the whole US electoral system. He explained that the mission of the group is not to fight anyone who wants to vote for either Trump or Biden but to ward-off the Proud Boys and other white supremacy groups. 

According to ADL, a non-profit organization that works to stop hate groups, the Proud Boys is a misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration organization. Some members espouse white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups, it added.

In the first presidential debate against Biden, Trump told the group to “stand back and stand by.” He added: “But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.”

Shortly after the debate, Proud Boys organizer, Joe Biggs, posted on social media: “President Trump told the proud boys to stand by because someone needs to deal with ANTIFA… well sir! we’re ready!!.” 

For Grand Master and his militia, the president essentially gave marching orders to the Proud Boys to attack Black voters, something he and his men would not allow to happen on Election Day and beyond.

“We’re not carrying those guns for show,” he said on the podcast, adding that: “You best believe I’m prepared to die so that you and your children can have a future.”

Not F*cking Around Coalition was formed in 2017 after white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, and instigated violence, leading to the death of one person and many sustaining injuries.

“This was it. We had to get serious,” Grand Master Jay told VICE News. “No more talking. No more speculating. No more ‘What ifs.’ That was when I knew race relations had gotten to a point. What were we doing here? Things are just getting worse.”

The group has two missions. The first is to form an “inter-city security force to protect Black communities and the second mission is to form an “ethnostate”, a new country that’s “owned, operated by Blacks.”