Police were able to retrace the steps of convicted sex offender Leonard Hall by tracking a phone that bounced off the university's Wi-Fi

Editor's Note: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse and may be disturbing to some readers. Additional resources can be found at the end of this story.

In the early morning hours of October 31, 2022, an American University Wi-Fi database recorded a phone moving through McDowell and Leonard Halls.

The phone was logged into the AU account of David Kramer-Fried, the former student pleaded guilty to and received a Suspended sentence for the sexual assault and burglary he committed at Leonard Hall around 2 a.m. that day, according to court documents reviewed by The Eagle.

The database — which was turned over to Metropolitan Police Department detectives — allowed police to confirm surveillance camera footage and AUID swipe access records that showed Kramer-Fried moving between McDowell and Leonard Halls.

An AU Police Department investigator also used the Wi-Fi recordings to verify whether a device was registered to student Kris Estrada arrested on August 1st for reported voyeurism at the Bender Library, was in the library at the time of the report.

The data showed police exactly when the suspects' phones were connected to Wi-Fi access points located every few rooms in campus buildings, providing approximate locations of the devices.

In Kramer-Fried's case, AU's Office of Information Technology provided MPD with the records documenting the device on the network and the device owner's user information.

A university spokesman declined to comment on specific cases, saying “we are legally prohibited from commenting on ongoing litigation,” but cited two Office of Information Technology policies.

The Policy on Responsible Use of University Technology Resources says Authorized employees only review “private, individual accounts and data” when requested by a judge or to assist with “legitimate requests from law enforcement or other regulatory authorities.”

The Information Technology Directive repeated this wording and said: “[a]All external requests for information from system logs or other usage records must be sent to the Office of General Counsel for review.”

Police have compiled a timeline of events as part of their investigation into Kramer-Fried in an affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court on November 14, 2023, in support of a police request for an arrest warrant.

The timeline covered the three hours between Kramer-Fried's first entry into McDowell and his return to his dorm room after illegally entering two rooms on the eighth floor of the Leonard Building, which housed only women.

In the affidavit's timeline, MPD Detective Eric D. Johnson writes that the records showed Kramer-Fried at the location of each access point. But during a search after his arrest, police were unable to match either of Kramer-Fried's two phones to the device stored in AU's database.

However, when he pleaded guilty to the charge, he agreed that the police version in the affidavit was correct. It's still unclear what device was connected to AU's Wi-Fi, but his plea negated missing parts of the investigation.

The device was connected to the Eagle secure Wi-Fi network using Kramer-Fried's login, Johnson said in the affidavit. The network asks users to enter their AU username and password before connecting.

Creation of the timeline from October 31, 2022

Shortly after midnight, Kramer-Fried's AUID entered Hughes Hall and security footage showed a man wearing a dark red Patagonia hoodie and black sweatpants walking through the front doors. Police later found the clothing when they searched Kramer-Fried's dorm room.

He lived on the sixth floor of McDowell Hall but had to enter through Hughes “due to the university's established safety protocols at a late hour,” the officer wrote in the affidavit.

At 12:28 a.m., security footage showed Kramer-Fried walking across the pedestrian bridge into Leonard Hall. At the same time, the device logged into his account was connected to an access point in Leonard Room 304, the closest access point to the pedestrian bridge.

The device then connected to the access point near Leonard's second floor bathroom at 12:39 a.m. Over the next 20 minutes he traveled up five floors, with the device connecting to the bathrooms on the third, fourth, fifth and eighth floors.

A witness told MPD investigators that between 12:54 a.m. and 12:58 a.m. he saw a man wearing a red hoodie and using a phone while standing outside a fifth-floor room, Johnson, the detective, wrote in the affidavit.

The device logged into Kramer-Fried's account connected to multiple access points on the eighth floor between 1:02 and 2:30 a.m. At that time, the eighth floor was the all-women's floor at Leonard.

Two women are named as victims in court documents. The eagle will call them survivors. The two survivors lived in different rooms on the eighth floor, each with a roommate identified in the files as a witness.

The survivor who first reported the incident told police she woke up some time after 2 a.m. to find a man standing over her bed, who silently and quickly left her room when he noticed she was waking up.

Johnson wrote in the affidavit that when the survivor woke up, she “thought she had been touched,” but she “did not respond.”

About five minutes later, the device connected to an access point in the second survivor's room, down the hall from the first. She woke up around 2:30 a.m. and saw a man fitting the same description — tall, wearing a red sweatshirt and dark sweatpants — standing over her bed. He then crouched down and fled her room.

The survivor then jumped out of her bed, ran to her door and watched as he ran across the hallway into a stairwell.

The device is recorded between 2:33 and 2:44 a.m. descending to the third floor, where it remained for about ten minutes before Kramer-Fried was videotaped crossing the pedestrian bridge into McDowell Hall just before 3 a.m drove. The device traveled to the sixth floor, where he lived at the time, and the police timeline ends.

Students who have experienced sexual assault or harassment can seek support through confidential resources such as the University's Center for Well-Being Programs and Psychological Services, the Student Health Center, the Kay Spiritual Life Center, or the following hotlines:

• College Assistance Program: 1-855-678-8679
• Rape, Abuse, Incest, National Network (RAINN) Anonymous chat
• RAINN Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
• DC Rape Crisis Center: 202-333-7273

Non-confidential resources include the University's Title IX Office and AUPD.

This story was edited by Walker Whalen, Tyler Davis, Abigail Turner, and Abigail Pritchard. Copy editing by Luna Jinks.

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