Former Tutor Pleads Not Guilty In Corona Del Mar Cheating Scandal

SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A former tutor pleaded not guilty Tuesday to helping three students hack into a computer system to change their grades at Corona Del Mar High School.

Timothy Lance Lai, 29, was charged with one count of second-degree commercial burglary and four counts of computer access fraud. He faces up to five years and eight months in prison if convicted.

Eleven students were expelled from Corona Del Mar High School in the cheating scandal.

Lai fled the country after the scandal broke, but was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport last month. He was released after posting $200,000 bail and is scheduled to return to court Jan. 9 for a pretrial hearing, Senior Deputy District Attorney Brock Zimmon said.

Six of the 11 students expelled enrolled in other schools and five others were transferred within the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

Lai was charged with using a "key-logging" device on at least two computers, Zimmon said. However, Lai could face other charges in this case.

Between April 1 and June 14, 2013, Lai was accused of accessing the school's computer records with passwords obtained from keylogging devices and changed the grades of three students taught by two teachers. One of the teachers discovered the grades had been changed and notified school administrators, who reported it to police, Zimmon said.

Investigators found another keylogging device on a third teacher's computer in December 2013, Zimmon said.

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