The Detroit News reported on April 3, 2025 that 17 women have now filed lawsuits against now-disgraced offensive football coach Matt Weiss and the school for which he worked, the University of Michigan.
The reason? Mr. Weiss is accused of stealing the personal information, photos and other confidential things from hundreds of student-athletes. Weiss is accused in federal court of violating the federal statutes that protect the privacy and data of each of us.
What was Weiss up to (allegedly)? Yahoo Sports and the Detroit News have each reported that Weiss hacked in to the computer accounts for female student athletes across the country in order to access their most “intimate” photos. This conduct, according to media coverage, dates back as far as 2015, when Weiss worked for the Baltimore Ravens and their accomplished and respected coach, John Harbaugh.
The timeline carries through 2022, the last several of those years found Weiss working for Jim Harbaugh at the University of Michigan. U-M is based on Ann Arbor and Weiss’s Ann Arbor office in the vaunted “Schembechler Hall” is where federal agents executed search warrants of his computer and purportedly made the horrific findings.
There are 4 individual lawsuits and a 5th lawsuit that includes 11 women. The 5th lawsuit is seeking to consolidate their claims into what is called a “class action.” There are pros and cons to proceeding as a “class.” The intention to proceed as a class has to meet certain requirements and court approval is necessary, too.
One of the alleged victims, just so happens to have been a victim of Larry Nassar as well. Imagine what she has gone through, now being victimized twice as a college-level scholar-athlete.
The Nichols Law Firm (NLF) represented 4 of the hundreds of victims of Nassar. As a reminder, Nassar used his position as a sports doctor at Michigan State University and the United States Association for Gymnastics (USAG) to sexually abuse hundreds of young women who were student athletes. He is now serving essentially a life sentence in federal prison after he was prosecuted. MSU and USAG were both sued, and the attorneys battled for compensation for our clients.
Stealing the intimate photos of young women is horrible. Nassar may have committed horrible physical abuse, but the act of invading the privacy of people and exposing them all to embarrassment and humiliation – and Weiss and his employer should have known better. What the 2 situations have in common are that each wrongdoer did nothing more than pursue his perverted sexual appetites. Justice will be sought and the only 2 ways for justice to be served in America are prosecuting this man and obtaining financial recoveries for his victims. We are here to help.
The information contained in this web site is neither legal advice nor is it intended to be legal advice. The information contained in this web site is general information designed to give the reader a basic understanding of some legal concepts about what we do in these areas.
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