A hacking scandal involving keyloggers and electronic grade-changing at a high school in Newport Beach, a well-to-do area of Southern California, has resulted in the expulsion of 11 students. The Orange County Register reported Wednesday that six of those students had already left the district, but five had been transferred to another local school.

“The Board’s action imposes discipline upon these students for the maximum allowed by the Education Code for what occurred at Corona del Mar High School,” Laura Boss, the Newport Mesa Unified School District spokesperson wrote in a statement on Wednesday.

US News and World Report ranked the high school in question as the 46th best within California.

However The Daily Pilot, a local newspaper, reported that this isn't the first time the school has been associated with cheating: "Two years ago, 10 Corona del Mar students bought answers for a history test on Amazon.com. One student was accused of attempting to sell the answers to classmates. A 17-year-old Corona del Mar senior was arrested in 2004 after being accused of changing grades in the school's computer system for other students."

Where's Tim?

Local police have accused Timothy Lance Lai, a 28-year-old tutor, as being the possible ringleader of an operation to install keyloggers on school computers and help students change their grades. His whereabouts remain unknown.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the school district “is now in the process of auditing 52,000 student grades to see if others might have been altered by students this year. The tutor, parents told the district, worked with as many as 150 students.”

Jennifer Manzella, a Newport Beach Police Department spokesperson, told Ars that Lai has not been charged with a crime, but that the police continue to seek him as a person of interest in the case. The police did execute a search on his home in December 2013, seizing a number of items, including hard drives, flash drives, and school materials.

“We have not made contact with him since [our preliminary] investigation [in December 2013],” she said. “He’s not wanted, we don’t have a warrant out for his arrest.”

According to a review of court documents, including a search warrant and an affidavit, which Ars obtained from the Superior Court of California County of Orange on Thursday, police believe that Lai’s involvement goes back to at least April 2012.

The affidavit states that police believe Lai violated California Penal Code 502(c)(4): "Knowingly accesses and without permission adds, alters, damages, deletes, or destroys any data, computer software, or computer programs which reside or exist internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network."

According to the Corona del Mar Today blog one student, Isabel Jorgensen, told the school board that she worried about the broader impact this scandal may have on all students in the district.

“They put others at risk and they put others in harm's way and they tarnished the reputation of their high school,” she said. “To hear that they might be coming to Newport Harbor High School to tarnish our reputation is equally scary and terrifying.”

Lawyering up

According to an affidavit written by Detective David Syvock of the Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD), local police were first made aware of a possible “cheating incident” at the high school back on June 18, 2013. A science teacher, Kim Rapp, told school administrators that someone may have accessed her computer and changed grades for some of her students.

Police later concluded that “grades were changed from a remote computer during the early morning hours of June 14, 2013.” That review clearly showed that two students were involved at that point. Ars is withholding their names, as they are minors.

Neither Boss, the district spokesperson, nor Rapp, nor police investigators responded immediately to Ars’ request for comment.

One of the students (whom Ars will refer to as “A") told police that she and her friend “B” had their environmental science grade changed as the result of a “device” that B had installed on Rapp's computer. In A’s case, her grade went from a C to a B.

A also told police that B had instructed A to take blame for the incident. Further, B told A that her “tutor” pushed A to also take the blame. When the police tried to interview B to find out the tutor’s name, her mother told the police that the family had retained counsel and that B would not make a statement to the police. Consequently, the police temporarily closed the case.

However, they got a break at the end of the year.

Police heard tutor say other students were "fucked"

On December 17, 2013, Officer Anderson of the NBPD was contacted by a Corona Del Mar High School assistant principal who had information pertaining to the hacking scandal. A third student, C, told the police that his tutor—this time identified as Timothy Lance Lai— “asked him to place a keylogger device on the computer of various teachers” at the school.

C declined to help Lai, but Lai persisted—specifically he asked for C’s help in placing the keylogger on the computers of the Honors Chemistry, Spanish, and English teachers. C did not comply with this request but did manage to put the device on the AP World History teacher’s computer. In exchange, Lai allegedly gave C a copy of an upcoming test.

C also told police about an occasion where he and Lai went to the school late at night to place a keylogger on the chemistry teacher’s computer. Lai had an “electronic lock picking device,” which C said did not work, but they managed to gain access anyway.

The eleventh grader also told police that 11 other students at the school were involved in the cheating ring. Additionally he identified Lai to police on his Facebook page. C also allowed police to search his phone and examine text messages between himself and Lai.

The conversations include information about meetings for tutoring as well as discussions about the cheating scheme. There were several messages within the dialogue about installing devices on computers as well as pictures of what appeared to be high school tests. It was clear from the content that Lai and [C] were using text messaging to discuss strategies on how to continue this elaborate scheme.

On December 18, 2013, Officer Anderson presented a six-pack photo lineup for C, including Lai and five similarly featured individuals. C “positively identified Timothy Lance Lai as his tutor and the person who provided him with the keylogger devices to install on the computers at Corona del Mar High School.”

The same day, Officer Anderson and Detective Syvock met with C at a police interview room, during which time they placed a “covert call” between C and Lai, which the police recorded.

During the phone call, Lai made statements implicating himself in the elaborate cheating scheme. Lai also identified other CDM High students who were involved in the scheme as he told [C] that they were, “Fucked.”

As a result of the affidavit, the Newport Beach police were allowed to search Lai’s home and 2001 Toyota. Among the items seized were four USB thumbdrives, two hard drives, a Motorola cellphone, an “unknown electronic device,” a “book with cut-out containing a concealed, unknown electronic device,” a “legal notepad with student names,” and various math assignments, quizzes, and tests.

A search of Lai’s premises also turned up a “micro camera with attached battery.”