Student Grade Hacker Gets Off Easy

This is a follow-up to a post I did way back in June of 2008 concerning a local high school student who hacked into the school district's grading system and changed grades for himself and others in order to fix GPA problems that were going to keep them out of the colleges of their choice. The student was facing 69 felony counts and up to 38 years in prison, but got off incredibly easy:

A 21-year-old Tesoro High School graduate who broke into his school repeatedly to change grades and steal tests nearly three years ago will serve 30 days in jail and pay nearly $15,000 in restitution under a plea agreement reached Monday with prosecutors.

Omar Khan of Coto de Caza pleaded guilty to five felony counts; he also will perform 500 hours of community service and remain on three years' probation, according to the terms approved Monday by an Orange County Superior Court judge. Khan was scheduled to stand trial beginning Monday in Santa Ana, after being arrested in 2008 for allegedly breaking into his high school in Las Flores at least six times.

"He made some bad judgment calls and has taken full responsibility and is trying to say, 'I'm sorry,'" said his attorney, Carol Lavacot. "He really feels bad about what he did and what he put his family and friends through."

I'm not buying that for a minute. I know a lot more about this case than I can reveal here, but I don't think the crocodile tears from his attorney are anything more than theater.  I happen to know that the original plea deal included a year in jail.  I'd love to know what strings were pulled to get it reduced to 30 days.

I also found this paragraph pretty funny:

"It wasn't like there was a lot of guidance for Omar, and so he kept thinking he wanted to go to trial because he wanted the jurors to see all he basically did was cheat and he didn't meant to hurt anyone else," Lavacot said. "It's really important to him that people don't think of him as a bad person."

Of course, had he succeeded he and his friends could have taken college spots that should have gone to much more qualified individuals thus impacting their future lives...but that doesn't make him a bad person.  Nooooooo....

Memo to Omar:  People who cheat are bad people regardless of how they justify their crimes in their own minds.

With this handslap sentence the courts just made grade cheating and school computer hacking an acceptable risk.