Two former student-athletes at the University of Michigan have filed a class-action lawsuit against the school, its board of regents, a third-party vendor and embattled former offensive coordinator Matt Weiss, indicted last week on two-dozen federal charges related to computer hacking and identity theft.
A former member of the Michigan gymnastics team in 2017 and 2018, identified as Jane Doe 1, and a former soccer player at the school from 2017 to 2023, ID’d as Jane Doe 2, filed the suit in federal court on Friday, alleging that Weiss illegally accessed their private, personal, intimate photos.
Weiss, 42, was arraigned in federal court in Detroit on Monday on the 24 charges relating to unauthorized computer access and identity theft. Alongside his attorney Douglas Mullkoff, Weiss entered a not guilty plea and was released on bond, according to court records.
In the lawsuit, the two former student-athletes allege that Michigan failed to monitor and supervise Weiss during his employment from 2021 to January 2023, when he was fired amid a police report over suspicious computer activity coming from the football offices inside Schembechler Hall.
More: Ex-Michigan OC Matt Weiss targeted female athletes in hacks, feds say
On Thursday, after more than a year of investigating, federal authorities announced the charges against Weiss, alleging the former football coach accessed a third-party database containing personal information and medical data of more than 150,000 student-athletes at more than 100 colleges and universities across the country.
Federal officials also allege that Weiss “downloaded personal, intimate digital photographs and videos” obtained by hacking into social media, email and cloud storage accounts of more than 2,000 student-athletes and an additional 1,300 students at universities across the country.
“The University assigned and directed job duties to and upon Weiss,” the lawsuit reads. “Those job duties and direction directly resulted in Weiss accessing private, personal, intimate images and information of Plaintiffs and others similar to them, all of which were private, and entrusted to be a safeguard by the university and its agents.”
The allege crimes took place between 2015 and 2023, according to the indictment, a time period that stretches back to Weiss’ days working for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens. Federal prosecutors claim Weiss primarily targeted female college athletes “based on their school affiliation, athletic history and physical characteristics.”
The database at the center of the investigation was maintained by Pennsylvania-based software company Keffer Development Services, which was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs allege that Michigan, its regents and Keffer “took no action to prevent this unauthorized access.”
“We have not been served with the complaint and cannot comment on pending litigation,” Kay Jarvis, the school’s director of public affairs, wrote in a statement on Monday.
While the two plaintiffs are listed, the suit filed by attorney Parker Stinar of Chicago-based law firm Stinar Gould Greico & Hensley, PLLC, covers “all persons whose personal information, images, data, social media or videos were accessed by Weiss without authorization,” a figure estimated to exceed 1,000.
The plaintiffs are requesting a judgement of more than $100 million.
Weiss coached at Michigan for two seasons prior to his termination, collecting salaries of $600,000 and $850,000, respectively.