An All-American Track And Field Sextortion Scandal

Join me to hear the story of Steve Waithe Jr., an All-American Track and Field star, coach, cyberstalker, and prolific sextortionist! This is eCrimeBytes.com Season 4, Episode 11 – An All-American Track And Field Sextortion Scandal.

Sources:

Transcript:

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:30:34
Keith
What’s up, you crazy bastards. Welcome to another week of eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court documentation and roast the criminals so you don’t have to. All right, so this week I have for you all American track and field sextortion. I know. Listen, I got to pause here for a second. Just rearrange my glasses, because that’s how I felt when I opened up this research at the beginning.

00:00:30:34 – 00:00:52:46
Keith
And I just read page one of this and I was like, this mother fucker. Like, I get mad at this guy immediately and you’ll figure out why. Just stay tuned. I’m going to tell you all about this story. So let me tell you about Steven Waithe Junior. Now, his last name is spelled W a i t h e Junior.

00:00:52:51 – 00:01:20:17
Keith
Okay. Now, if you ask his defense attorneys because, surprise, surprise, he’s caught later on, they say he’s a a former all-American track star with a bright future. Okay, so let’s let’s hear a little bit about this. All right. So, basically, well, first of all, all right. I I’ve got pictures for you. Right? And if you follow me every week, you’re probably like, this is a sweet background compared to your normal crappy background.

00:01:20:28 – 00:01:37:32
Keith
My wife made fun of me last week. She made fun of me and said, my background sucks. So now here you go. Here you go. This is my tribute to Fight Club. This is probably going to be one of my default backgrounds. But then you’re probably like, you know, Keith, you could probably jazz it up. And I agree with you.

00:01:37:32 – 00:01:58:15
Keith
I can. Check this out. Yeah. Now, I’ve got pictures of Steven Waithe Junior on your screen this whole podcast that you could pay attention to if you get sick of seeing me. He’s just going to hang out. And if you wonder why, why these pictures? You got one on one side and it looks like he’s kind of jumping through the air.

00:01:58:16 – 00:02:08:46
Keith
That’s him doing track and field. And I’m going to show you some pictures coming up here in a second where that came from. And then you have the other picture on the other side where he’s kind of a kind of creeping out the back window.

00:02:08:46 – 00:02:12:46
Keith
I was I was pretty happy about that one when I Photoshopped that one.

00:02:12:46 – 00:02:30:57
Keith
And I thought you’d appreciate that. You will figure out why. Because by the end of this, you can be like, Yeah, that guy is a total creep. He’s a total creep. Okay, so I’m just gonna leave him on the screen here. I’m going to show you some closer up pictures later, but this will be throughout the episode. Now, his parents, they came here to America from Trinidad.

00:02:31:02 – 00:02:54:00
Keith
They settled in Maryland, which is a great state. Great state. It’s my state. Great state. And he was born and raised there. So he was actually born in America and raised in starting in Maryland. And you’re going to see he bounced around a couple other states by the time we catch up with him. And he has a bunch of siblings.

00:02:54:01 – 00:03:12:21
Keith
Okay. So I started doing a little bit of research on these siblings. He had a brother named Stann, and I was like alright what is Stann about. Stann went to the University of Michigan and I was like, Mother fucker, see I’m from Michigan State University. And if you know anything, you know that Michigan State University and U of M, we don’t like each other.

00:03:12:26 – 00:03:33:35
Keith
So immediately I was like, This family is fucking suspect because they’re going to University of Michigan and you can’t trust anybody that goes to U of M, right? I know, I know. And I’m going to get a bunch of comments. Right. All right. So he starred the 400 meter race, okay. This brother Stann, and he also competed for Trinidad in the 2008 Olympics.

00:03:33:40 – 00:04:00:54
Keith
So you can imagine this family is not just an athletic family. This family is on the high end of athletic families. And then there’s this other brother, Stevann, spelled with two N’s, actually spelled S t e v a n n. Okay. Now, Steven the one we’re talking about spelled Steven. So Stevann his other brother is a sprinter and a hurdler also went to the University of Michigan.

00:04:00:56 – 00:04:21:36
Keith
I was like, Yeah, fuck that brother. Who was. That’s two. That’s two brothers that went to University of Michigan already. I’m not liking this family. And then so I went on, I went on. Again, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding because I went to Michigan State. And he has a sister. And his sister, Anneve is her name.

00:04:21:41 – 00:04:54:41
Keith
She apparently was the closest with Steven, the Steven that we’ll be talking about. And she ran track at Wake Forest and then went on to law school. And then she currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and is working for nonprofit while studying for the bar. Very, very high achieving family. So now you got Steven Waithe Junior that comes in here, probably looks at his siblings and is like, okay, well, I got these two brothers and they’re doing track.

00:04:54:46 – 00:05:18:46
Keith
I thought they were cool, but they went to the University of Michigan, so they’re obviously assholes. I’m just kidding. And then he looks at his sister is like man, she’s good at track too. I better be good at track, right? So he started running track and his specialty was the triple jump and the long jump. Those are just two events on the track and field competition that he would be in.

00:05:18:51 – 00:05:42:44
Keith
And he received at the beginning a scholarship to Clemson University. He got this in his senior year of high school. But when he had grade issues, the scholarship was rescinded, so he didn’t actually get to take it. So he ends up going to a university called Shippenberg University for two years, and he did well enough there, where then he got a full scholarship to Penn State.

00:05:42:49 – 00:06:10:48
Keith
I’m sorry, but when you’re talking about full scholarships, you just have to stop there and just recognize that that person’s got to be very, very well athletic. Right? So at Penn State, he’s there and he excelled at track and he was an all-American athlete. So everything’s just going great for him, right? He’s got these two asshole brothers that go to University of Michigan and he’s like, Fuck, you guys. Had a little bit of a trouble there for a couple of years.

00:06:10:48 – 00:06:25:56
Keith
But then he ended up at Penn State and, you know, at Michigan State we don’t like Penn State either, but we like them a little better than U of M. So Penn State is pretty cool in my mind, right? All right. So that is the background of Steven Waithe Jr and the like promised,

00:06:25:56 – 00:06:29:24
Keith
here are some pictures of him closer up.

00:06:29:24 – 00:06:54:07
Keith
Okay. And these are just some various pictures that I had found in just various news articles. If you ever want to go to the sources for any of my pictures, I always put the sources of my pictures and the transcripts of my blog that’s always linked in the video. Or if you’re listening to this audio only, I link it there to you so you can go check all this stuff out at the original source and read all the articles, read all the court documents do if you want.

00:06:54:07 – 00:07:08:47
Keith
I put all those up there so you can see this guy looks like he means business, right? I mean, he’s he’s doing that jump and he’s going to be coach here in a second and he’s doing his thing at Penn State. And this this is where I get the pictures

00:07:08:47 – 00:07:14:00
Keith
from. So now, you know where I get the pictures from in my cool background in my office.

00:07:14:05 – 00:07:42:24
Keith
All right. So after school is done and he’s finished with school, I guess he doesn’t make track. It’s not like he goes and competes and makes money to live. Okay. So he becomes a coach, a track and field coach, and he coaches several different places like Penn State University, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Tennessee, Northeastern University and Concordia, University of Chicago.

00:07:42:29 – 00:08:02:47
Keith
So a lot of really well known places he was a track coach at. And right there you can say that’s pretty commendable, right? It is. Until the bottom falls out. And this is about the point where the bottom starts to fall out on him. Okay. So track apparently had been his world for so long,

00:08:02:47 – 00:08:30:54
Keith
he could not imagine doing anything else. Okay. But he wasn’t the star anymore. He was, quote unquote, just a coach and not the star. So he was just the assistant coach making a small amount of money, which I imagine when you go from being the top athlete of these schools that I told you about earlier, where he’s getting scholarships and doing his long jump and making money and going to school, and then you go out and they’re like, hey, here’s a little bit of money to be a track coach.

00:08:30:54 – 00:08:31:50
Keith
And you’re not the big

00:08:31:50 – 00:08:49:46
Keith
fish in the pond anymore. That was what his attorneys later on said were was very difficult on him and kind of lead him down this path. That was the explanation of it. Okay. I got a little more of that and I got some verbatim stuff later on that you got to stick around for.

00:08:49:51 – 00:08:52:10
Keith
So let me tell you a little more about Steven, okay?

00:08:52:45 – 00:09:16:29
Keith
So what he wants is to show you your form, okay? Because he’s a track coach. Makes sense, right? Steven, will come up and say, I want to show you your form. Okay, Coach, show me my form. And you would expect the coach to whip out their phone. Right? And or a video camera that the school board or literally anything else except for the student’s phone.

00:09:16:34 – 00:09:34:09
Keith
In these cases, he would just say, hey, give me your phone. I will take the pictures and videos and all that kind of stuff right on your phone. Then you’ll have them. It’ll be easy for you to see your form. It’ll be so much simpler than having me to have to transfer them off my phone. Right. Just give me your phone.

00:09:34:14 – 00:09:58:59
Keith
But you’re going to have to unlock it, right? Because I need the camera to get these pictures. So you need to unlock your phone and hand it to me for an unspecified amount of time. Let’s say 20 minutes to several hours while I take your picture and videos doing your form. Okay. Now, what could go wrong in this situation if you’re not already thinking down this road?

00:09:59:04 – 00:10:34:08
Keith
Like I started reading this, I was like, Holy shit. Yes, yes he did. While he was pretending to video and picture these students, he goes through their photos, finds private photos, think students in high, not high school, in college, he would go through their photos and then direct message them to himself through Instagram, and then delete his tracks or delete, you know, the the actual message that happened in the sent box.

00:10:34:08 – 00:10:45:21
Keith
So the student wouldn’t actually see evidence that it was sent out. So imagine that. And these are I did not hear of a male instance. So I think these are all female victims, from what I understand.

00:10:45:21 – 00:10:52:45
Keith
Okay. So then he sent, you know, like I said, he sent these photos off to himself and then you got to wonder, what the hell is he going to do with them?

00:10:52:45 – 00:11:01:01
Keith
And I mean, you can go down some dark thoughts and it’s probably for personal reasons that he was sending himself these this material,

00:11:01:01 – 00:11:18:13
Keith
but he seems also use it for sextortion. And let me explain what that means, because I don’t think we talked about it, but it’s been a while since we’ve talked about this. This is basically you extort somebody into sending you sexual pictures.

00:11:18:18 – 00:11:41:53
Keith
Okay. So when you’re a sextorting somebody, it’s not I mean, you could extort somebody for money. Say, hey, you know, give me X amount of money and I will not release your pictures. That’s one type of extortion. But usually and what is in this case is Steven saying, hey, if you send me more nudes, I won’t release these nudes.

00:11:41:53 – 00:12:00:47
Keith
That’s the type of extortion we’re going to be talking about in this case. And I’ll get a little more detailed about what he does here. Okay. And what he does is he sets up these anonymous accounts. Now, when I say anonymous, I mean just not under his name. Right? It doesn’t say Steven Waithe or even Steven Waithe Jr.

00:12:00:52 – 00:12:39:48
Keith
It’s like the word anonymous and mixtures of word privacy and just different things that aren’t associated with his name. He will contact the victims that he stole these images from, the people that he knew and his track team. But pretend to be some person on the outside being a quote unquote good Samaritan that found these images and I’m using air quotes, just found these images on the Internet of them in compromising undress or in positions, I guess, and basically tried to be their friend and be like, hey, I found these of you out there.

00:12:40:02 – 00:13:11:24
Keith
Let me try to help you scrub this of the Internet. Okay. And now his this this is his general scheme. Okay is he would basically try to be this good Samaritan. And somewhere along the line he even tried to pretend to be a woman. And I believe her name was Katie later on to try to lend a little trust to his account for other women to go, well, this is a woman maybe asking me for nude pictures and not a man.

00:13:11:24 – 00:13:32:00
Keith
So maybe I won’t feel so bad. I mean, you got to think about that through Steven’s mind, right? I mean, it’s a little bit warped, but that’s what he tried. Well, one of the things he also did to extort them was when he pretended to be this good Samaritan. He’s like, I don’t know if the hacker posted all your nudie pictures.

00:13:32:04 – 00:13:53:48
Keith
Maybe you should send me all your nudie pictures so I can reverse search them and find all the instances for you so he could scrub the Internet. Okay? And I was like, my God, I hope nobody fell for that. And from what I read in the court documentation, it sounded like nobody did. So I hope nobody did.

00:13:53:53 – 00:13:54:47
Keith
But Jesus.

00:13:54:47 – 00:14:05:22
Keith
He even claimed to be working with law enforcement at points to basically say, you know, I’m working on this thing and you can trust me and you can send me these pictures because I’m just a law enforcement person.

00:14:05:22 – 00:14:24:48
Keith
This stuff doesn’t even really get to me anyways, right? That’s what he’s kind of going for. So that was a one batch of victims that Steven picked on was the track team girls where and I say girls because they’re much younger than I am and they feel almost like children. And he victimized them. Okay.

00:14:24:48 – 00:14:57:39
Keith
But then he picked on one particular victim for a while between June and October of 2020. So several months in this case, it wasn’t just a few messages that he would send like to the other girls. He really he really focused on this particular girl and he hired a coconspirator online in this forum called leaked b b, l e, a, k, e, d, b, b just the letter B like BB gun.

00:14:57:44 – 00:15:18:23
Keith
It’s a forum where basically people trade these type of pictures where you supposedly get them from real people. You know, you either like get them off hacked phones or I take it maybe that’s like an ex that you have pictures of. But there’s this whole group of people that like to trade this type of genre of pornography out there.

00:15:18:27 – 00:15:41:01
Keith
And it sounds like they can meet at a place like this forum to figure out where to trade these pictures, because they would trade it with, you know, with like cloud file shares and other places that aren’t on the forum. It’s sounded like the forum was the watering hole where they came and talked about where they were going to trade them later on.

00:15:41:06 – 00:16:11:24
Keith
And so Steven hires this coconspirator to quote unquote, hack into the Snapchat account of this particular victim. And what it ended up being is this coconspirator sends this phishing email, which is just an email pretending to be from Snapchat admin saying, Hey, you have a problem with your account, I need you to log in or I need you to give me your security code and your pin right now so we can straighten this out and get your account back to you.

00:16:11:29 – 00:16:35:52
Keith
And so a lot of people freak out, and I imagine it sounded like this victim probably did and provided their security code in the PIN. Now, I’m not a big user of Snapchat other than just kind of knowing it’s there. So I did a little bit of research into this and it sounds like the security code will get you into the account, but the pin will get you into the special area where you can put sensitive pictures.

00:16:35:52 – 00:16:53:50
Keith
Let’s just leave it at that. Right. That’s where people, you know, I’m sending pictures to my wife and I want to put them someplace where I can be assured nobody will get them, I’ll put them on my goddamn Snapchat account in the saved folder for some reason. Right. That’s the thought process behind here. And I apologize, victims that I’m saying that.

00:16:53:50 – 00:17:22:11
Keith
But you’re putting it up on a cloud service. Okay, So that’s what’s happening here. But it’s being locked on the particular cloud service. Since the attacker now has the sensitive information, they can log in just like the victim and get in all these sensitive areas. Okay. So when they did this, Steven and this coconspirator, they found nudes of this victim and in this secret photo section.

00:17:22:16 – 00:17:49:54
Keith
And then Steven started picking on this victim and her boyfriend. Okay. He did that by continuing to message them. He message boyfriend things like, and now he did this not as Steven, just as like some random creepo out there. Well. It’ll make more sense, but just not as himself. He sends things to the boyfriend that says, I wanted to make you aware that someone hacked your girlfriend’s Snapchat account and will leak it soon.

00:17:49:59 – 00:18:09:02
Keith
I need your help to assure this does not happen. And then he. I don’t know if the boyfriend didn’t answer or what, but then Steven then started trying to communicate with the victim herself and said, Hey, do these look familiar and sent her the pictures of herself that were in the sensitive area and said, please let me know as soon as possible.

00:18:09:02 – 00:18:27:30
Keith
And then because I think maybe he just didn’t answer the other routes, he decided to go the texting route and used a service called TextNow to basically have a virtual number out there on the Internet where he can text the victim and then basically said the same stuff and says, hey, is this you and sent her the pictures.

00:18:27:32 – 00:18:51:19
Keith
Okay. And now, because he got into her account and was very happy about it, Steven told his coconspirator, Fuck, yes. You know, I’m willing to pay money for this stuff. Where should I send it? And then later on, investigators traced a payment from Steven to the coconspirator over fucking Google Pay. So not even like bitcoin or anything else.

00:18:51:19 – 00:18:56:53
Keith
It was like the very standard way of paying other people. So very easily traced payment.

00:18:56:53 – 00:19:20:42
Keith
Now I concentrated on one victim. There were there were more victims out there. There were at least four other individuals in addition to this coconspirator that Steven worked with to go after these other victims, too. So it’s almost like this pyramid scheme of sextortion that Steven Waithe has going on here.

00:19:20:42 – 00:19:34:11
Keith
It’s absolutely horrible. He attempted to hack into at least 68 women Snapchat accounts, trying to replicate what it is that he just did to this victim that I just told you about.

00:19:34:11 – 00:19:48:24
Keith
Out of those 68, at least a dozen of them worked. So then he stole images and videos from those victims. Okay. And then also later on, you may be wondering to yourself.

00:19:48:25 – 00:20:16:00
Keith
He couldn’t he just when he gets caught just say, hey, that wasn’t me, it was somebody else at my computer, Well, they did all the types of investigation you would imagine. They also figured out later on when they look backwards at it, investigatively, they said between May of 2020 and March of 2021, they found Steven messaging others and how to hack Snapchat and at least 164 individual occasions.

00:20:16:00 – 00:20:40:12
Keith
Okay. This guy was really intent at figuring out how to hack Snapchat specifically, I think, because of these videos and pictures that people are known to save in this sensitive area. Now oh my God, let’s just stop there for a second. That’s just a that’s already a tornado of sextortion, right? This guy should just go down for years and years and years just for this scheme alone.

00:20:40:17 – 00:21:14:20
Keith
He didn’t stop here. Okay? I think it was because he changed employments or something along those lines, but something changed where he changed his whole God. I don’t know if you call this part sextortion, but his whole getting pornography from real women scheme going. And what he did is he created a few Google email addresses, fake ones, and he pretended to be this Katie Janovich, or Katheryn Svoboda.

00:21:14:25 – 00:21:56:41
Keith
Those are the two women names that I talked about earlier that he would use to try to gain some kind of trust with the women on the other end to make them think, maybe I’m talking to a woman. It’s not going to be so bad if I divulge some more sensitive pictures. That’s Steven’s thinking here. Now, what Steven did in this scheme is something that is called the quote unquote, the body development scheme, where Steven will pretend to be part of this body development research through these ladies, these pretend ladies and focus on women who had competed in collegiate athletics and were making the transition to post-college a post competition life.

00:21:56:46 – 00:22:13:00
Keith
So it sounds like Steven kind of has a type here. I’m not going to I’m not going to lie. It sounds like he’s into college girls who are athletic, maybe on the verge of leaving college. I’m just going to guess there okay. I personally don’t know that much about porn, but I can tell you, I think that’s what Steven likes.

00:22:13:05 – 00:22:39:22
Keith
Okay, so this is what Steven is after. So he targets these women, these women in college. And there are points where Steven goes to women he knows that are athletic and probably interest him. And he says, I know these ladies, Katie Janovich and Katheryn Svoboda, that are doing some research on athletics and you should really talk to them.

00:22:39:22 – 00:22:59:20
Keith
They could probably help you out. And I’m sure the ladies thinking that this guy is being very altruistic, you’re like, Thank you very much for this help. And they ended up actually just talking to Steven himself, where he’s just being a creep and pretending to be these women in order to get pictures of his subjects to study them.

00:22:59:20 – 00:23:35:44
Keith
Okay. Now, what he would say as these women, as Katie and Katheryn, he would say, and I’m going to paraphrase here, hold on a second. Ladies. You need to send me some semi nudes. If you got nudes, I’ll take those, too. But at least seminude, preferably in a bra and a thong. Okay. Because specifically weight gain shows in breasts and buttocks.

00:23:35:48 – 00:24:03:52
Keith
That was his reasoning for needing these skimpy pictures. Okay. And the whole time he’s trying to pretend this is legitimate research. And as a legitimate researcher, I’m fucking pissed at this, by the way, because it’s hard enough. It’s hard enough to get human subjects to participate in any type of research. It’s so hard that I’ve never done it as a researcher because it’s just so hard.

00:24:03:57 – 00:24:27:33
Keith
And then you have this asshole coming in here tricking people to get semi-naked pictures of them. They’re never, ever going to help with legitimate research the rest of their life. And it’s absolutely horrible. But I’m going to stop that rant there. That wasn’t even in my notes. I just went that one off the cuff. All right. So Steven just went out and basically said, you know, a bunch of women have sent pictures of this.

00:24:27:33 – 00:24:54:07
Keith
You know, a bunch of women have sent them in their bras and their thongs. And then he wants to reassure them. He’s like, hey, you know what? Just to show you that this is real, I’ll send you some pictures of myself, too. And then he sends pictures of other victims as this pretend person he’s being on the Internet to trick these other victims to send him more naked photos.

00:24:54:07 – 00:25:38:13
Keith
Right. He’s revictimizing victims to get other victims to send them photos, to make them victims. It’s just absolutely insane. It’s a tornado of sextortion going on it. Unbelievable. So then and then he throws this out. Probably there was one maybe a student going maybe I’ll go into medical. Maybe I’ll go into medical. So Steven was like, Hey, by the way, disclaimer My research is protected by HIPAA, spelled HIPAA, and if you’re not familiar with that, that’s what you sign when you go in the doctor’s offices that doctors say, Hey, we will not ever give your information even to your spouse unless you sign something and sign your whole life away, even just to

00:25:38:13 – 00:26:01:04
Keith
tell them that we are we treat you. That’s that’s basically what HIPPA says. You can’t even you can’t disclose anything. And so throwing down an acronym like that, people see that. They’re like, I recognize it, but I know what that is. And Steven goes on to say, The information is 100% confidential and your name, images and likelihood are not included.

00:26:01:04 – 00:26:09:49
Keith
It’s strictly the data that is used in this research. Unfortunately, it’s probably Steven’s research, if you know what I mean.

00:26:09:49 – 00:26:30:37
Keith
All right. So in this scheme, Steven targeted at least 62 women for this body development scheme. He successfully obtained at least, at least 400 photos from 36 victims. So that’s about ten photos per person then.

00:26:30:41 – 00:26:40:42
Keith
And I was just like, my God, this guy is so goddamn creepy. And the only other person that creeps me out this much was probably Uncle Rico, right?

00:26:40:42 – 00:26:49:56
Keith
So if you don’t know who Uncle Rico is, it’s one of my other favorite movies. So anyways, Steven, then, okay, he didn’t stop there.

00:26:49:56 – 00:27:11:52
Keith
He didn’t just collect these and keep them to himself. And these ladies can have some tiny little bit of assurance that maybe only he saw them. No, not at all. Fucking Steven shared them with people. He went to those LeakedBB boards that I told you about earlier with the forums and like hey people. I got a bunch of.

00:27:11:57 – 00:27:34:56
Keith
I got a bunch of images. Who wants to trade with me. Okay. I’m going to read you the actual passages that he said in a minute here. But just to remind you, this LeakedBB forum. This is where people go to trade this kind of pornography, where I don’t know how to categorize it is kind of like you steal it from real people.

00:27:35:01 – 00:27:47:46
Keith
It could be like ex-girlfriends or, you know, ex-boyfriends or like, you hack into somebody’s phone and you get like a ton of photos that way. It’s that type of forum that we’re talking about here.

00:27:49:03 – 00:28:11:38
Keith
Now he goes out there in these forums, Steven does, and he says, quote unquote, does anyone want to trade nudes? I’m talking girls you actually know could be exes or hacks or whatever. I have quite a few and down to trade over Snap or anything. And then he went on in a different post. He says, I’m looking for someone to trade with. Not stuff from here.

00:28:11:39 – 00:28:31:24
Keith
Girls you may know. Hacks or exes. I have a lot of good ones. Mostly white girls in their twenties. Send a message if interested. So now you see, you know you’re getting the flavor of what type of forum this might be. That’s why I was saying maybe exes or it could be coming off of people’s phones that I…

00:28:31:25 – 00:28:53:27
Keith
Listen, I do a lot of fucking research for you people. I was not going to this forum and put this anywhere near my I don’t want to search for this because I would be served horrible ads for the next month until I research the next case. And I struggle every episode just to get whatever it was that I researched for you guys on the last episode out of my history.

00:28:53:32 – 00:29:24:43
Keith
Because Google then just goes nuts on it where it’s like, Hey, hey, I heard you’re really twisted. It’s like, No, I’m not twisted. I just research twisted shit for my audience that likes twisted shit. Okay. All right. So from 2019 until 2021, he posted an offer to trade these images no fewer than 55 times and ultimately distributed nude and or seminude.

00:29:24:43 – 00:29:50:00
Keith
I would. Listen. Seminude is as nude enough in in this context. Seminude. You don’t get a pass on seminude. Okay, Steven, seminude is just as bad as nude because you fucking stole these in any way, shape or form you want to rationalize this. So all these images are horrible for these women to be shared and you shared them.

00:29:50:00 – 00:30:16:58
Keith
And there were 11 fucking victims and I feel absolutely horrible for them. So at some point the law finally catches up with him. I hope there were several young ladies in a police station somewhere saying, take this guy down because he is terrorizing all of us. April 6, 2021. There’s a complaint. Okay. I tried to spare you guys the legal terms here, but I have to give you a little bit here just to give you an appreciation of the timeline.

00:30:16:58 – 00:30:39:34
Keith
Okay? Because when I read this, I was like, holy fuck. All right. April 6, 2021. There’s a complaint. And what happens is a complaint comes out and that’s where the government makes an accusation against you. And it depends on jurisdiction. But just, just imagine this is like where your charges are, right? This is where they say, I’ve charged so-and-so.

00:30:39:39 – 00:30:59:32
Keith
And then there can be a time that goes by from the complaint to the indictment, which the indictment at least in the state level indictments that I’ve been involved with, involves a grand jury that has to vote on it. And then they sign off and you get an indictment. So there’s a complaint and an indictment in this case.

00:30:59:37 – 00:31:18:54
Keith
You just need to know that they’re separated by time. The complaint is kind of when everybody knows that Steven’s involved with this. The indictment is more of a legal process that has to be done for his trial that most people don’t really care about. It just kind of lays out into more detail about the charges. And in this case, I believe it actually added a few charges.

00:31:18:59 – 00:31:44:44
Keith
So know that you need that background for what I’m about to tell you. The complaint comes out, it’s wire fraud and cyber stalking. Okay. Most criminals or most accused criminals are allowed out before the trial because there are people that are accused that are innocent. Okay. There are some, not any apparently that we’ve covered in this podcast at all.

00:31:44:44 – 00:32:02:52
Keith
But apparently there are some. So they usually let people out if they’re not like an ax murderer going to flee or anything like that. And I guess they determined he wasn’t going to flee because they said, hey, you got to go out with your dad in Maryland. You got to live with him and the court, and everybody was like, Yeah, that’ll be good.

00:32:02:53 – 00:32:29:05
Keith
He’ll be down with his dad. But he gets in trouble even before the indictment comes out. I don’t know what it was. I searched high and low. I tried to pull the court documents. There’s a separate case in Maryland. I couldn’t pull the details of what it was that caused him to be arrested in that case, in this Massachusetts case that I’ve been bringing you, it just refers to this Maryland case that he was arrested.

00:32:29:05 – 00:32:39:35
Keith
So I don’t know exactly what he did in Maryland. I can say that I’m going to put the conditions of his release on your

00:32:39:35 – 00:32:52:49
Keith
screen right now. It’s very simple. There’s only two of them. One is he has to live with his dad in Maryland and the second one is he can’t use computer or Internet enabled devices and he cannot access the Internet at all.

00:32:52:54 – 00:33:05:49
Keith
So imagine if they arrested him in Maryland and then they decided Massachusetts, then later decided they’re like, nope, nope, we’re going to hang on to that fucker. He’s already doing bad shit. I think it’s because he probably got on to the internet and did some bad shit.

00:33:05:49 – 00:33:12:34
Keith
I think. Now this is just my guess based upon this court document here, this basically you cannot be online.

00:33:12:37 – 00:33:17:25
Keith
I think he broke that and they found out and they arrested him and they kept him in jail until his

00:33:17:25 – 00:33:39:18
Keith
trial. So then later on November 30th of 2021, the actual indictment comes out. The more official, more detail document that I told you about. Now they have count one through 12 wire fraud. And I was like, that’s usually like that’s usually a money crime.

00:33:39:18 – 00:33:59:41
Keith
That’s kind of an interesting one. And it’ll make sense here. And I’m going to show you what they charge him with here in a second in a table, and it’ll kind of make sense. Count 13 is cyberstalking. And I was like, Yep, that one victim, he’s definitely cyberstalked her and her boyfriend. Count 14 was conspiracy to commit computer fraud.

00:33:59:45 – 00:34:24:32
Keith
That’s because he tried to break in to the Snapchat accounts with people. So it’s a conspiracy. And then count 15 is computer fraud aiding and abetting? And I’m like, man, that’s a that’s a lot of charges. That’s 15 counts. He’s staring at just right off the bat here. And so as I promise you, let me show you what counts

00:34:24:32 – 00:34:45:00
Keith
1 through 12 look like. So here’s the first chart that I have for you And I. When I first read wire fraud, I was like, where did where did money get involved with this? Because I’m so used to seeing wire fraud when it deals with people trying to trick people out of money. But here it’s tricking people out of nudes and you’re pretending to be somebody else that you’re not.

00:34:45:05 – 00:35:08:50
Keith
So kind of the same thing, but you just replace the naked pictures for the money and you can charge them with the same crime, apparently, which is an interesting way to go about it. So this is chart one. You can see this is just counts one through six, the first six counts. And what they do legally is in each of those counts, they put a specific instance that he broke next to it.

00:35:08:50 – 00:35:32:55
Keith
So you can see they said, you know, for victim XYZ, he did this through this Instagram account. For victim ABC, he did that through this Instagram account. And they laid it out very well in these two charts that I’ve been showing you as I’ve been kind of just talking away here. Okay. So one of the other things that they said they want in the indictment, in addition to these 15 counts.

00:35:32:55 – 00:35:52:03
Keith
Right. They want to they want to seize his shit. Okay? They’re like, you’re you’re pretty. You’re a douche. All right? You’re a douche. We’re going to take your shit too. All the shit you used to commit these crimes. We want it. So that includes a black Google pixel five cell phone, an HTC cell phone. We want your Samsung notebook.

00:35:52:12 – 00:36:20:03
Keith
We want your Apple iPad, we want your Seagate freeagent desktop hard drive and we want that SanDisk 64 gigabyte sandisk card that you got there too. Don’t don’t forget that one because I imagine at some point you probably put some naked pictures on there and they get to seize it. So yeah you know, listen, this guy is probably looking at 15 counts of very, very heavy time.

00:36:20:08 – 00:36:36:07
Keith
I’m sure he’s probably not worried about his his notebooks being seized by the government. But it was it was a pretty big deal. The judge did ask him very specifically. He says, you know, this is a lot of computer equipment. Are you okay forfeiting this? And he said, yes. Did I just spoil it for you? No I didn’t.

00:36:36:07 – 00:37:00:31
Keith
You know, this guy is going to get caught in the end, Right? All right. So hold up because Steven pleads guilty. This is November 21st, 2023. He goes up there and he goes, I’m guilty of all counts. And I went, really? Like, did you get a plea or anything with that? And the government, because I asked them personally, I guarantee you, I asked them personally.

00:37:00:32 – 00:37:16:45
Keith
The government came back and they said, Keith, no, we didn’t even have a plea with him. He still he still went up there and he pled guilty to everything without a plea. And I was like, Holy shit, that doesn’t happen often. The government was like, I know this is great for us. And so he basically went up there and I read the whole transcript.

00:37:16:45 – 00:37:41:32
Keith
He didn’t. Usually when I bringing these cases, they have a plea agreement that says, you know, there’s certain sentencing guidelines and all this other stuff, and then the criminal will say, I did it this way, and that’s how I can give you some of these cases, the detail. This case, he just went up on the stand and the prosecution and the judge and the defense, they asked him questions and he answered them just openly.

00:37:41:32 – 00:38:03:08
Keith
And I read the whole transcript. And I’m going to, you know, that’s one of those things that you really got to be into to read a transcript because it’s got every if um at but. Yeah, everything. They’re very hard to read. So then he pled guilty to everything we go now to a sentencing hearing. Right. Because that’s the next step in the criminal process.

00:38:03:13 – 00:38:23:49
Keith
His defense get up there. They got up there. God. I got to rearrange my glasses for this one, too. When I read this, I was like, is this for real? So the defense started saying some stuff in their argument for why Steven should have a lighter sentence. Let me read you some of their some of their phrasing here.

00:38:23:51 – 00:38:27:08
Keith
Okay. Defense wrote this. Okay. Not the government.

00:38:27:08 – 00:38:43:21
Keith
So he says he felt isolated and fell into a depression. He lost his status, a part of his identity. It felt as if he had lost his purpose. He started spending more time online viewing pornography. And I’m like, shit, where is this going?

00:38:43:26 – 00:39:08:13
Keith
And then the defense continues and says his interest and obsession with self-produced pornography grew. And in his depressed state, he crossed many boundaries and stealing images from young women he coached. And I was like, You’re supposed to be arguing for your client, right? Because this doesn’t sound good. And the defense says, Yeah, we’re arguing for him. Hold on

00:39:08:13 – 00:39:34:19
Keith
a second we got more. And they go on and they go, He continued the behavior even after being fired from Northeastern and came up with other ways to obtain additional images such as creating fake Instagram accounts to trick to try to trick women whose images he had already stolen into sending more images. But none of them did. This is in the court paperwork.

00:39:34:24 – 00:40:02:11
Keith
I’m reading you verbatim what they said. I just added a little color to the sound. All right. They go on. They said he created fictitious body development study and using an alias try to convince former female athletes to send him nude or partially nude photographs, which we’ve established is both just as bad. And it goes on to say most recipients ignored the emails, but some did not and sent him the photographs.

00:40:02:16 – 00:40:27:09
Keith
And I was reading this going, okay, so when are you going to start arguing for your client? They said, one more second. They said, intertwined with his sexual interest in this type of imagery was a need to exert some power and control over others at a time in his life when he felt like he had been knocked off the pedestal of being an elite athlete.

00:40:27:13 – 00:40:36:53
Keith
And I was like, okay, you can argue for your client yet? They’re like, Yes, we only want 27 to 37 months, please, and

00:40:36:53 – 00:40:37:56
Keith
three years supervised.

00:40:37:56 – 00:40:56:18
Keith
And so I was like, That was your argument? And the government was like, Yeah, Keith that was fucking their argument. Wait until you hear our opening statement. I was like, I can’t wait to hear it, but Steve has got something to say. Let’s let’s hear that first as Steven comes back and he writes this fucking four page letter. Okay, four page letter.

00:40:56:18 – 00:41:16:22
Keith
And listen, I read a lot of court documents, but I started a read through the thing and I’m just like bull bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. So the whole thing is basically about Steven and it’s not even really about his victims. He tells us about how he’s going to write a bunch of inspirational books, while he’s in jail, a lot of them like three or more.

00:41:16:22 – 00:41:42:19
Keith
And he outlines them and he talks about how he’s going to inspire people and just groups and clubs and in prison and outside prison. And he wants to help people reform the justice system. And I’m like most criminals in prison say this. They’re sitting around going, Well, this sucks. Maybe we can fix this. And then they try and then they all come out, go, We’re going to reform the justice system, and then the justice system just stays shitty like it always is.

00:41:42:24 – 00:42:05:13
Keith
And then he goes on and he goes, I’m setting up a foundation named the Waithe Foundation. So, motherfucker, literally after yourself. You’re naming it after yourself. Okay, This is your this is your defense of why you should get less time in prison is you’re making some kind of foundation named after yourself. Not some nice name in memory of your victims, but after yourself.

00:42:05:13 – 00:42:25:48
Keith
Okay, go on. Let’s hear this. And he goes, yeah, this this foundation, this is going to help the victims of crimes. No, he didn’t say that at all. He says it’s going to bring mental health to inmates. And I was like, okay, that’s noble and stuff, but wouldn’t have helped the victims of crimes. Like, that’s who you hurt here.

00:42:25:48 – 00:42:44:25
Keith
That’s what you should be helping, in my opinion. So in my opinion his whole letter was basically instead of talking what I did to the victims, I’m just going to talk about all these things that I’m going to do for society and why I’m great. And because of that, I’m just not gonna read this whole letter and I’m not even going to read even a majority of the letter.

00:42:44:27 – 00:42:57:49
Keith
What I wanted to read you was the one little spot where he kind of comes back and talks about the victims because I think he kind of caught himself of talking about maybe just himself too much, in my opinion.

00:42:57:49 – 00:43:11:36
Keith
He says, Your Honor, I cannot stress enough how remorseful I am for my actions in this case. And I do not want this letter to seem as if I am diminishing or disregarding my actions to the victims. Listen.

00:43:11:41 – 00:43:29:20
Keith
I got to sigh for a minute. This is just one of those rules in life that when somebody tells you that they do something one way, usually they mean something completely different. And he just told us, and I’m telling you, I read the letter. He just the whole letter, he just disregarded his victims. And now he’s like, I don’t want to sound like I’m disregarding my victims.

00:43:29:25 – 00:43:47:43
Keith
Well, motherfucker, you are. You are. Okay, Because I’m going to go on and read this and you will see how much he doesn’t mention his victims. He says, I just believe I would be doing a disservice to the victims, my friends and family, the community and the world if I do not figure out how to utilize my God given talents.

00:43:47:48 – 00:44:08:34
Keith
I just ask that you give me a fair sentence and allow me to not only get to fulfilling my purpose, but release me to my family and friends that love me and believe in me. I would be remiss to mention that I have worked very hard every day while incarcerated so I could get back home and be the primary caretaker for my mother who battles MS.

00:44:08:38 – 00:44:10:54
Keith
Taking care of her has always been part of my

00:44:10:54 – 00:44:30:29
Keith
purpose. So out of all that that I just read you and that was a tiny little part of his letter. He mentioned the victims, what, maybe twice, maybe. I would say that’s almost debatable. Yeah, it’s just not it wasn’t a good defense in my opinion. And the government probably saw this opportunity.

00:44:30:31 – 00:44:35:56
Keith
They were like, that was horrible. You want to see what we’re dealing with? Here we go.

00:44:35:56 – 00:44:53:08
Keith
And I put this on your screen. This was literally in the sentencing hearing opening for the government. And it’s what Steven wrote to these women. And I will read this verbatim because this is what you have to leave in your mind about what this guy did.

00:44:53:13 – 00:45:12:41
Keith
He says, now this is all quoting being him talking to these women. He says, I know that type of thing is hard to overcome for a lot of women, but these pictures are only seen by me. I hope now that I have shared pictures of myself, you now feel comfortable. Remember, he’s saying this as a pretend other woman.

00:45:12:51 – 00:45:34:36
Keith
So in his mind, he’s kind of tricking them. Hopefully most women caught on to this. Now, another one, he says, I wanted to know if you had any sort of pictures from before that were either you in a bathing suit or topless or naked, etc., that I can compare? I know that’s aggressive. LOL. But you are one of my best participants

00:45:34:36 – 00:45:52:43
Keith
to date. Also, I wanted to know for the next time you take pictures, if you could do some different poses for me. All that should be a red flag. Red flag. What researcher would say things like, Could you take different poses for me? That that’s that’s Uncle Rico right there. Uncle Rico wrote that.

00:45:52:43 – 00:45:55:56
Keith
Okay, another one, he says.

00:45:56:01 – 00:46:21:22
Keith
And don’t be shy haha show as much as you can. Like I said last time, I know it’s uncomfortable, but try to go topless. If you can remember, these pictures are strictly for analysis and deleted immediately with an exclamation point no less. And these are all written by Steven Waithe posing as a female researcher named Katie as part of his scheme to trick victims into sending him explicit photos.

00:46:21:28 – 00:46:33:58
Keith
Okay, so then the government, they lead with that and then they have their whole legal argument, which you didn’t even need to read after you read that, you’re like, my God, that guy is worse than Uncle Rico. He’s got to go away forever. And the government says, You know what? We agree with you, Keith. We agree with you.

00:46:33:58 – 00:47:02:47
Keith
We want 84 months. And I went, Holy fuck, government, that’s random. What is 84 months? And I got out my calculator and I calculate it, I was like, my bad, that’s only seven years. So it’s only seven years. And there was three years supervised release. Now I will say upfront, seven years. That felt right to me. Okay, A lot of times the government will ask for a whole lot more. They’ll ask for like 20 years because the defense will ask for two years and the judge will land somewhere in the middle.

00:47:03:00 – 00:47:27:54
Keith
But when I heard seven years when the government asked for that I was like that is about right. Maybe you should probably ask for more on that one. Okay, you probably should ask for more. And the judge went back and they said, all right, the defense wants what was it 27 to 30 months and the government wants 84 months. And Jesus Christ, I cannot get somebody calculate… seven years alright seven years.

00:47:27:59 – 00:47:41:42
Keith
I’m going to give them five, five years for all 15 counts to be served concurrently. No fines, a 1500 dollar special assessment and three years supervised release. And guess what?

00:47:41:42 – 00:47:50:49
Keith
I’ll recommend that he could be located in a facility near Baltimore, Maryland, where his family is now. He can be remanded back to custody.

00:47:50:54 – 00:48:09:20
Keith
I imagine the government, they were like, God damn it, we wanted seven years. And I was looking at this going, God damn it, I wanted seven years. But the defense was probably like, shit man five. That’s a lot of time. That’s a lot of time, especially to be known as a sexual predator in prison. That’s not good.

00:48:09:25 – 00:48:13:41
Keith
So that is it. That is the end of this slimy, slimy case.

00:48:13:41 – 00:48:35:54
Keith
When I saw a the track coach. So I’m thinking authoritative position and then I saw a sexual predator together in one case, I was like, we have to talk about this because this is a horrible situation that if you don’t know about it, you need to know about it. And it it happens more often than people know about.

00:48:36:03 – 00:49:02:02
Keith
So I will bring a case like this every so often. So like I said, with that, with those compounding factors, meaning he is a predator and that he was in a position of power… He wasn’t just somebody on the street, which I don’t want to minimize it, but people trusted him. They expected when they gave him their phones that he would not take pictures of them that he would find and send them off to his phone.

00:49:02:02 – 00:49:32:33
Keith
Okay. That right there, that was aggravating in my mind. Okay. So that’s why I thought five years this was not enough. If he was somehow just a stranger into this. Okay, maybe five years. But he was trusted and I hope that this is one of those cases where the judgment was even kind of weirdly written in the court record, where it was just kind of this text phrasing of how many years he got.

00:49:32:37 – 00:49:54:49
Keith
Usually there’s a whole document that tells me a lot more than there was, and it just says he has three years probation or supervised release. In my mind, I’m thinking, I hope for the sexual component that motherfucker’s on some kind of sexual predator registry list for life. Okay. That’s something that needs to be known about if he’s going to be going after people the way he had been.

00:49:54:49 – 00:50:20:10
Keith
And it seems like he probably did because he did something between his complaint and his indictment that was bad enough that he was thrown back in detention until his trial. Okay. So that’s it. That’s the case. I hope you liked this. Please. I don’t ask of any money from you. I ask one thing. Two. Maybe two things. One is please, like this video. That just helps me get this video in front of other people.

00:50:20:15 – 00:50:50:15
Keith
That’s the number one thing. The number one thing. The number two thing. Subscribe to my channel. Okay. That’s the number two thing for getting my videos in front of other people. Those are metrics that just work for YouTube. You just got to trust me. If you really want to go above and beyond and you have a friend that you know likes True Crime podcasts that’s interested in electronic crime, that, you know, there’s a nerd that talks every once in a while, which is me, please share this with them, because only you would know a friend like that.

00:50:50:15 – 00:50:55:49
Keith
I would appreciate any of those three things that you could do. Any of those three: like, subscribe, or share.

00:50:55:54 – 00:51:08:59
Keith
And with that, with that, I’m going to end here this week for you and we’re going to come back next week and we’re going to have another bonkers case for you. And I look forward to seeing you then. Thanks for sticking with me this week. See ya. Bye.

DrKeithJones.com

An All-American Track And Field Sextortion Scandal

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