Tutor pleads guilty in Corona del Mar High cheating scandal, gets 1 year in jail

The Irvine tutor who helped a group of Corona del Mar High School students hack into their teacher’s computer to change grades was sentenced Tuesday to one year in jail and five years of formal probation as part of a plea deal with the court.

Timothy Lance Lai pleaded guilty in Orange County Superior Court on Tuesday morning to 20 felony counts of computer access and fraud and one felony count of commercial burglary for his involvement in the cheating scheme.

The 29-year-old originally faced a possible sentence of up to 16 years and four months in jail. He previously had pleaded not guilty to all charges.

“It’s beyond my understanding how you thought you could get away with this,” Judge Robert Fitzgerald told Lai before issuing his sentence. “The truth always comes out.”

Lai sat next to his lawyer in silence — his gaze sometimes cast downward — as Fitzgerald reprimanded him for orchestrating the scheme, which ultimately resulted in 11 students being expelled from the school.

“This is a horrendous crime you committed,” Fitzgerald said. “Maybe for a long time [Corona del Mar High School] will have a black eye because of it.”

After remaining stoic during the hearing, Lai accepted Fitzgerald’s suggestion that he apologize to those affected by his actions.

“I profoundly apologize for the trouble I’ve caused in the past,” Lai said. “I’m ready to make amends. … I’m really, truly sorry.”

Senior Deputy District Attorney Brock Zimmon contended that the amount of jail time wasn’t severe enough, considering the impact the crime had on the school. Zimmon said his offer was three years in jail, which Lai did not accept.

“This affected every student at the school,” Zimmon said. “It affected the value of the degree.”

Prosecutors believe Lai broke into the Newport Beach high school in 2013 to place a keylogging device, which tracks keystrokes, on the back of a teacher’s computer to steal logins and passwords.

Using the recorded information, Lai accessed the school’s network and changed students’ grades 19 times between Jan. 25 and June 14, 2013, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

The cheating came to light in June that year after a teacher who discovered that students’ grades had been changed contacted school administrators. The Newport-Mesa Unified School District and Newport Beach police launched an investigation but initially couldn’t identify the culprit.

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

Lai fled to South Korea once he learned he was being investigated by police, authorities said.

Officers arrested Lai 10 months later at Los Angeles International Airport as he was returning to the United States. During his arrest, officers found a USB device containing evidence that implicated Lai in the cheating scheme, Zimmon said.

He said Lai had tried to destroy the evidence by reformatting the USB, but police were able to extract the data. Zimmon did not disclose exactly what was on the device.

Corona del Mar High School Principal Kathy Scott read a statement to the court before Lai was sentenced Tuesday, calling attention to the parents and students who were harmed by the scandal.

“Lives were shaken when they found out the person they trusted to help their student to improve academically undermined them and betrayed them by his leadership role in the cheating scandal,” she said.

She said the entire community was disrupted by the media attention resulting from the scandal.

“This damaged the academic integrity of CdM and devalued the perception of the CdM diploma,” she said.

Since Lai did not have a previous criminal record, Fitzgerald said the year in jail and five years of probation would be an appropriate punishment. However, he warned Lai that if he violates his probation, he would face the maximum jail sentence.