School Employees Accused Of Changing Grades For Cash & Sex

[matcom]

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MIAMI -- Two former Florida Memorial University employees and five students have been charged in a grade-changing racket that involved cash payments, computer hacking and even sexual favors.

Ellis Peet, 37, and Clifton Franklin, 32, received payments from $75 to $600 to change more than 650 grades for 122 students over a period of three years ending in 2002, court records showed. Franklin also allegedly received sex from female students after changing their grades.

Peet, a computer technician in the registrar's office, and Franklin, a data entry clerk, were fraternity brothers and acted on their own to organize the scheme, say officials at Florida Memorial, a four-year, historically black school of about 2,000 students in the working class suburb of Miami Gardens. Both graduates of the school, they also allegedly changed their own grades.

"We were very disappointed and very dismayed by the actions of these individuals," Marty Pinkston, the school's director of governmental and public affairs, said Thursday. "This happened in 2002, and we just want to put it behind us."

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/4868477/detail.html