Ex-Michigan football assistant is not guilty of cyber fraud

Detroit – Matthew Weiss, a former assistant coach of the University of Michigan and Baltimore Ravens, did not owe the federal court on 24 counts of unauthorized access to computers and aggravated identity theft on Monday.

Prosecutors claim that Weiss has made a huge, multi-year effort to gain access to the personal accounts of thousands of NCAA student athletes, who are generally aimed at specific female athletes to gain access to personal and intimate photos and videos. The 42-year-old, married father of three is confronted with tens of years in prison and millions of fines.

On Monday he was released on an unsecured bond of $ 10,000. He was also instructed to turn his passport and allow civil servants to install software on his computers to check the internet use. Judge Elizabeth Stafford also forbade him to possess personal information for someone other than himself.

Weiss, dressed in a dark suit and a blue tie, stood by the side of his lawyer and clearly answered several questions from Stafford at a quiet early afternoon hearing in the center, about 40 miles of the roar of the Michigan Stadium, where he once worked.

Weiss and his lawyer, Douglas Mullkoff, refused comments after the beforehand.

Weiss' actions, prosecutors, date from 2015 when he worked on the staff of the ravens and head coach John Harbaugh. It continued, they say, when he moved in 2021 to a position like Quarterbacks coach at Michigan, coached by John's Brother, Jim.

The university fired Weiss in January 2023 after a school investigation demonstrated that he had “incorrectly accessible” from December 21-23, 2022, while in Schembechler Hall-the home base of the Wolverines football offices. The university has further refused comments.

Weiss and Michigan were hit on Monday with a civil suit of two former Wolverines – athletes – a gymnast and a women's football player – for the alleged violations. The school was accused of not supervising and checking Weiss. Also mentioned in the court case is Keffer Development Services, which keep the medical data of student athletes at around 100 schools; A Weiss database accessible for the first time.

Weiss was once considered a rising star in the coaching profession. A former Punter at Vanderbilt, he had worked for Jim Harbaugh for the first time as a graduate assistant at Stanford from 2005 to 2008 before he joined John Harbaugh's staff for the next tens of years with the Ravens of the NFL.

By 2022 he had returned to the side of Jim and was the coordinator for a Wolverines team that won the Big Ten and reached the play-off of the University Football.

From 2015, however, prosecutors claim that he has had illegal access to around 150,000 athlete accounts that are held on the Keffer system, often by using increased access levels offered to trainers and athletic directors.

Weiss, the indictment is, assisted by online research, Krekker's coded password protection from some athletes.

With the help of that information, prosecutors claimed, Weiss open-source records began to use personal information from specific athletes such as “Mother's girl name, pets, place of birth and nicknames.” Weiss was able to access the social media accounts, e -mail and/or cloud storage of more than 2,000 targeted athletes by guessing or resetting their passwords, “said the indictment.

“Once he got access … Weiss looked for and downloaded personal, intimate photos that were not publicly shared,” was the indictment.

Weiss is also responsible for gaining similar access, for similar purposes, of another 1,300 students and/or alumni from schools throughout the country.

Weiss, prosecutors, have done extensive research and kept detailed notes about the athletes he focused, based on “their school relationship, athletic history and physical characteristics.” After viewing photos and videos, he held notes at whose materials he had seen, including comments about 'their bodies and their sexual preferences'.

His actions, says the indictment, took place for years, including repeated returns to certain accounts for “extra photos and videos.”

The case can be far -reaching with possibly thousands of victims in numerous schools.

Weiss is confronted with five years in prison and a fine of $ 250,000 on each of the 14 separate costs and another two years in prison at 10 extra costs.