Detailed in a civil trial filed Wednesday in the county of Alameda, an extended scandal involving the alleged violation of the private life of students by the former co-offensive coordinator of football of the University of Michigan, Mike Weiss, wrapped California State University, East Bay.
The prosecution alleges that the CSU East Bay has not protected its students from the hack reported by Weiss from private data of more than 150,000 student-athletes across the country, including at least one athlete of the CSU East Bay identified in judicial files like Jane Doe, to obtain “personal and intimate and intimate Departmental Department and Videos” of justice.
Lawyer Megan Bonanni, with the law firm Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers, and the lawyer Lisa Esser-Weideller, with the law firm Sommers Schwartz, represent student-athletes who have been violated their personal data. They jointly deposited the civil prosecution.
“What we are really trying to do here is not only the compensation of these victims for this injury, but also the creation of changes in these schools. We call policies to protect information from students,” said Bonanni. “It should never happen to any student again.”
CSU East Bay has not responded to numerous Bay Area News Group investigations for comments.
On March 20, the Ministry of Justice accused Weiss of 14 chefs of unauthorized access to computers and 10 chiefs of aggravated identity theft as part of an alleged hacking conspiracy on the social media accounts of student-athletes. Weiss would have acquired unauthorized access to private information of more than 150,000 athletes students of more than 100 colleges and universities between 2015 and January 2023, according to the indictment.
“Weiss has mainly targeted college athletes. “His goal was to get photos and videos never intention to be shared beyond intimate partners.”
Few universities informed students-athletes and alumni of the violation of their data, and many victims did not respond to messages from the Ministry of Justice because they thought they were “scams” according to their standardized format, according to Bonanni. However, the news of Weiss’s alleged crimes have spread, students-athletes and alumni asked for assistance to ask for justice against Weiss and their respective colleges.
“As far as we know, only one university since that has been revealed, alerted their students that their information may have been compromised,” said Esser-Weideller. “People come back to their e-mails and e-mails deleted and find these Doj’s opinions which are very, very real.”
Last week, Bonanni and Esser-Weideller filed a conservation notice at CSU East Bay forcing college to keep all registers of student-athletes between 2020-2022.
Bonanni said that the “lack of wholesale of private information universities” to protect the private photos of their students, videos, social media accounts and other sensitive information shows a systemic failure to protect the private data from students.
“We just see the first layers of the onion,” said Bonanni. “We learn more and more. But we notice, in the customers who contacted us, there is a tendency that he targets certain schools because we see groups of people manifest. ”
Bonanni and Esser-Weideller have a working story on collective appeals against institutions that have not protected their members. Bonanni was a defender of the victims in the case against the gymnastics coach of the United States Larry Nassar, who had abused more than 400 gymnasts. The case was settled by USA Gymnastics and the American Olympic Committee for $ 380 million.
Esser-Weideller previously represented the victims of the former sports doctor at the University of Michigan, Robert Anderson. The university reached a regulation of $ 490 million in 2022 for more than 1,000 Anderson-and-and-and-and-Thleader students would have been submitted to unnecessary hernia and prostate examinations during routine physical examinations.
“The centerpiece of these cases is the failure of an institution to protect the people who gave them their confidence and their belief,” said Esser-Weiderfeller. “They trusted the gymnastics of the University of Michigan and the United States to protect them from a predator. It is this institutional betrayal. ”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
