Tutor in cheating scandal faces additional charges

The adult tutor who is accused of helping a group of Corona del Mar High School students in a grade changing scheme is facing additional felony charges.

The Orange County district attorney’s office charged Timothy Lance Lai on Friday with 16 additional felony counts of computer access and fraud. Lai had already been charged with one felony count of second-degree commercial burglary and four felony counts of computer access and fraud, according to court records.

If convicted, the 29-year-old faces a maximum sentence of 16 years and four months in jail.

At a pretrial hearing Friday, Lai sat in the back of Orange County Superior Court in Newport Beach, biting his lip and fidgeting, while waiting to speak to the judge. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

“They’re not really a surprise,” Lai’s attorney, Donald Rubright, said of the additional charges. “It wasn’t a substantial change of circumstances.”

Rubright said he is still working on discovery in the case.

Investigators believe that Lai broke into Corona del Mar High in 2013 to place a keylogger on the back of a teacher’s computer to track the instructors’ keystrokes.

With the recorded information, Lai was able to access the school’s network between April and June 2013 and change three students’ grades, investigators say.

Based on further investigation by Newport Beach police and the district attorney’s office, authorities also accused Lai of changing students’ grades on 16 separate occasions between Jan. 28, 2013, and June 14, 2013.

The alleged cheating came to light in June of that year after a teacher discovered that student grades had been changed and contacted school administrators. The district and police launched an investigation, but couldn’t initially identify the tutor.

That December, school officials discovered that a keylogger had been placed on a teacher’s computer and grades had been altered. Administrators obtained Lai’s name through subsequent student interviews.

A student who was interviewed by school officials and police agreed to place a tape-recorded phone call to Lai at the police station while officers listened in, according to an affidavit filed in Orange County Superior Court in December 2013.

“During the phone call, Lai made statements implicating himself in the elaborate cheating scheme,” Newport Beach Police Officer David Syvock wrote in the affidavit.

Police believe Lai fled the country at some point after the phone call.

Eleven students were ultimately expelled from the high school in the aftermath of the scandal. Student involvement ranged from having knowledge of the cheating, receiving test questions in advance and handling the keylogger, according to student statements obtained by the Daily Pilot.

Newport Beach detectives arrested Lai at Los Angeles International Airport in October as he was returning on a flight from South Korea, according to the district attorney’s office.

Lai is scheduled to appear in court for another pretrial hearing on April 24.