The troopers graduated in August.

ATLANTA — The Georgia State Patrol dismissed nearly an entire graduating class, 30 troopers in all, on Wednesday as the state Department of Public Safety Commissioner Col. Mark W. McDonough acknowledged a wide-ranging cheating scandal.

The cheating ring revolved around the exam cadets take to be certified to operate a speed gun, McDonough said. It occurred within the 106th Trooper School, which graduated in August.

"It's a punch in the gut," McDonough said. "It goes to the core of what we do. Speed detection, enforcing the speed limit is one of the core functions of what the patrol has always done."

McDonough said there were four primary allegations investigated, and all were corroborated:

That everyone in the 106th Trooper School cheated on the speed detection operator exam. All who were interviewed admitted cheating, McDonough said.

That one cadet helped other cadets with their other online exams.

That three cadets helped another cadet pass his exam in one instance.

That a training instructor gave a makeup exam to two cadets who had failed one, and allowed them to take the makeup exam home and bring it back the next day.

"My opinion of the class is it wasn't so hard. It was something you had to pay attention to, but it wasn't rocket science, it wasn't engineering," McDonough said.

According to McDonough, the ring included cadets sharing information on Snapchat and GroupMe and also lining up their stories with one another over the social media platform once an investigation had begun.

An initial allegation against a single trooper, who had apparently given his username and password to a woman he was in a relationship with. The woman who took the tests on behalf of the cadet told GSP about doing so.

"What her motivations were, I'm not quite clear," McDonough said. "But I mean obviously she realized that it was wrong and she came forward."

That led to an investigation that began in October - the single trooper who was caught, McDonough detailed, "said 'well I'm not the only one who cheated, 'I'm not the only one who did this,' and made the allegation that essentially everybody had cheated."

That led to the discovery of the various other cheating instances.

"Our whole mode is to produce an officer that the public can trust. When a person is pulled over, when they're given a speeding citation, they should feel that the training the person received and their performance on the exams to get that certification has been done so without cheating," McDonough said. "And so this goes to our very core values and so it is something that its difficult to swallow."

McDonough explained 33 troopers initially graduated. One other cadet had previously resigned for reasons that weren't disclosed, another had been dismissed previously and the third is on military leave.

He indicated that two cadets, considered the smartest in the class, had failed an online exam, leading to a "panic among the class."

"Two individuals who were very well respected they saw them as smart individuals, quickly took this course online and then failed the exam. There was an element of if these two individuals fail the exam how's it gonna affect us," McDonough said.

He said there had been as many as 133 speeding tickets written by troopers who had not cleanly passed exams to operate speed guns before they were taken off that duty. It's not clear if those tickets will eventually be waived.

McDonough implied, though, there were possibly grounds for them to be vacated, if they were challenged.

"I know what i would do," if given one of those tickets, he said. "And so part of what we will do will be notifying the court systems that those citations are written and the actions we've taken against the officer that wrote them."

McDonough said his first move would be to try and eliminate online instruction in the Trooper School curriculum.

"In this instance our training academy is a resident academy, so my initial reaction is to completely move away from any type of online instruction and then all of our instruction will occur by instructors in the classroom, with what's supposed to be proctored exams," he said. "And so that's kind of my initial reaction and that's kind of the direction that I've gone - away from the element that has occurred into something we have more control over."

This is the full list of the 106th Trooper School:

Erguens Accilien, Columbia County, Post 21 - Sylvania

David Allan, Hall County, Post 6 - Gainesville

Jalin Anderson, Richmond County, Post 33 - Milledgeville

Erik Austell, Bibb County, Post 15 - Perry

Evan Bauza, Chatham County, Post 11 - Hinesville

Logan Beck, Camden County, Post 23 - Brunswick

Christopher Cates, Rabun County, Post 27 - Blue Ridge

Seferino Chavez, Clayton County, Post 47 - Forest Park

Demon Clark, Greene County, Post 17 - Washington

Christopher Cordell, Catoosa County, Post 5 - Dalton

Clint Donaldson, Coweta County, Post 49 - Motor Unit

Eric Guerrero, Coffee County, Post 36 - Douglas

Jonathan Hayes, Paulding County, Post 29 - Paulding

Nicholas Hawkins, Walton County, Post 46 - Monroe

Bradley Hunt, Muscogee County, Post 2 - LaGrange

Clarence Johnson, Richmond County, Post 25 - Grovetown

Evan Joyner, Muscogee County, Post 2 - LaGrange

Richard Justice, Columbia County, Post 25 - Grovetown

Malcolm Martinez, Cobb County, Post 47 - Forest Park

Rebecca Moran, Gwinnett County, Post 51 - Gwinnett

Paul Osuegbu, Barrow County, Post 6 - Gainesville

Jose Perez, Colquitt County, Post 13 - Tifton

Patrick Pollett, Columbia County, Post 25 - Grovetown

Troy Pudder, Houston County, Post 30 - Cordele

Caleb Pyle, Coweta County, Post 24 - Newnan

Daysi Ramirez, Houston County, Post 15 - Perry

Gabriel Rampy, Carroll County, Post 4 - Villa Rica

Adam Salter, Pike County, Post 26 - Thomaston

Jerry Slade, Crisp County, Post 30 - Cordele

Kyle Thompson, Berrien County, Post 36 - Douglas

James Vaughan, Sumter County, Post 10 - Americus

Brian Whelehan, Bryan County, Post 23 - Brunswick

Kelley Whitaker, Miller County, Post 14 - Colquitt

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