July 1, 2026, 5:55 p.m. ET
Former Michigan football coordinator Matthew Weiss may have caught a break in his ongoing federal trial.
A judge has granted Weiss’ request to suppress evidence obtained through an illegal search of computers and other devices at the University of Michigan, per court records released on Wednesday, July 1. However, the judge also denied Weiss’ request to suppress evidence the government obtained through a search of Weiss’ iCloud account as part of the same investigation.
Weiss was indicted in March of 2025, with federal prosecutors accusing him of hacking into computers and stealing photos and private information of more than 3,300 student athletes, mostly women, over a period of eight years between 2015-23. The FBI has charged him with 14 counts of unauthorized access and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft.
Weiss has argued that the evidence initially obtained by University police, and eventually federal investigators, was part of a search that violated the Fourth Amendment. Judge David M. Lawson partially agreed with that argument, allowing evidence from the physical search at U-M to be suppressed.
“The search warrants issued by the state magistrate are difficult to defend, as the government appears to acknowledge, but the information is admissible, the government argues, because later-issued federal search warrants for most of the same electronic devices cured the constitutional defects in the state warrants,” Lawson wrote in his latest opinion. “None of those arguments is persuasive, and the materials obtained from certain computers, tablets, and smart phones, identified below, will not be allowed into evidence.”
The judge found the initial search of computers and other equipment from Schembechler Hall by University police violated the Fourth Amendment. However, investigators claim that their own investigation, which occurred after the University’s investigation, should be treated as independent of the initial search, and that they should be able to use evidence obtained in their own seizure of the equipment.
Lawson disagreed with that argument, however, calling the evidence obtained in the federal investigation “fruit of the poisonous tree.”
“The government cannot show that the initial illegal search had no effect in producing the FBI’s federal warrant,” Lawson wrote. “While it is impossible to know for certain whether the FBI would have opened a federal investigation and sought a federal warrant if it never had been informed of the evidence obtained in the searches, it is fair to say that the FBI’s knowledge of the evidence made it more likely to pursue the investigation than it would have been otherwise.”
Though the evidence obtained through the search of U-M equipment will be thrown out, the evidence obtained through a search of Weiss’ iCloud account can still be used, as Lawson declared that investigation as legal.
This is a potentially momentous ruling for Weiss, whose trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 22. A judge in December denied Weiss’ request to dismiss the aggravated identity theft counts, which would carry the most prison time if he were found guilty.
Weiss’ legal representatives did not immediately respond to the Free Press’ request for comment.
Weiss, along with former U-M coach Jim Harbaugh and former U-M president Santa Ono, among other school officials, is being sued in a separate civil case by at least 74 women who claim Weiss hacked into their accounts and stole personal data.
Weiss faces more than 70 years in prison if convicted in the federal case.
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You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com.
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