The controversy surrounding the University of Michigan football program is not limited to former head coach Sherrone Moore.
Federal prosecutors have announced they have dozens of videos of former Michigan offensive assistant coach Matt Weiss in three offices at the team’s football facilities before hacking college students’ personal accounts, according to a search warrant affidavit by the FBI.
Weiss stands accused of stealing private photos and videos from as many as 3,300 students – the majority of them women – at over 100 universities across the country. Weiss was indicted on 14 counts of unauthorized access and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft on March 20.
However, Weiss’s attorneys have filed two recent motions to have the charges dropped due to questions about the constitutionality of how the evidence against their client was collected.
Specifically, the lawyers question whether the warrants enforced by the University of Michigan Police Department were constitutional; they also have issues with the discovery of evidence in the FBI investigation.
For their part, the feds stress that Weiss’s legal team is contesting the process, not the charges.
“Weiss does not challenge the FBI federal warrant directly,” the government filing states. “He does not claim that this warrant’s affidavit lacks probable cause. He does not claim that this warrant was overbroad or lacked particularity. And he does not – and cannot – claim that the federal warrant included any information obtained by UMPD during its search of devices pursuant to the warrants that Weiss challenges.”
Weiss is not only facing charges from federal prosecutors. A group of 70 women is suing the former coach in civil court for stealing their private photos from their accounts.
Michigan fired Weiss in February 2023 after the allegations against him surfaced.
