UPDATE, March 8, 12:45 p.m.: Assembly Education Chairwoman Marlene Caride (D-Passaic/Bergen) announced Wednesday she will craft legislation making it against the law to forge school transcripts in New Jersey. For details click here.

Multiple basketball players at the center of a broadening scandal at Paterson Eastside High entered the school with transcripts that were incomplete, altered or fraudulent, NJ Advance Media has learned.

In two cases, transcripts for Nigerian student-athletes did not match their previous stop at a private school in northern Idaho, according to documents obtained by NJ Advance Media and interviews with school officials.

The most brazen example shows a player's transcript from 2012-13 -- when he would have been in the equivalent of the sixth grade -- was crudely forged and presented as his work for the 2015-16 school year in Nigeria, even though he was enrolled in Idaho. While the class year on the barely readable transcript was changed, the player's classes, grades and academic standing were all left the same.

In other instances, grades or the number of credits were changed after students had enrolled at Eastside -- including one adjusted in the days immediately after an NJ Advance Media report on Feb. 6 first called into question the living situation of six overseas players on the school's boys teams.

The suspicious transcripts, while a small sample size in one of the state's largest school districts, appear to show a willingness among Eastside coaches or officials to break academic guidelines to get athletes eligible to play for the powerhouse basketball team. They also raise questions about a lack of scrutiny and oversight from senior administrators responsible for preventing academic fraud during the process of reviewing, updating and approving transcripts.

Terry Corallo, a spokeswoman for the Paterson school district, was presented with NJ Advance Media's findings on Tuesday morning. She said in an email that comparisons of the altered transcripts have been taken to superintendent Donnie Evans and John Wallace, a former Supreme Court justice investigating the athletic department for the district.

"Please be assured that our Superintendent is highly troubled by these discrepancies and is prepared to take significant steps to ensure that this never happens again in Paterson Public Schools," Corallo said in a statement to NJ Advance Media.

On the left is a transcript obtained by NJ Advance Media used at Paterson Eastside. On the right is the real transcript from three school years earlier. The session years were changed, but all of the grades are identical. Download the transcripts seen above here and here.

The New Jersey Department of Education can investigate if a questionable situation regarding a school district is brought to its attention, spokesman David Saenz Jr. said. If it discovers wrongdoing, the DOE can require a school district create and implement a corrective plan to address the issues.

Previous cases at other schools have led to job suspensions and dismissals. The situation at Eastside, people in the local basketball scene agree, also raises ethical questions about the lengths that coaches will go to win games. Issues of academic fraud have rarely, if ever, surfaced in the competitive realm of New Jersey high school sports, where allegations of recruiting players for athletic advantage are more common.

"Where is the administration of the school?" asked Jim Baglin, who won 685 games during his 33-year career as Mendham High boys coach before retiring in 2012. "What separates us from other countries is that sports are part of the school experience. If you don't honor the academic side of the equation, what's the point?"

Corallo said that Paterson, a school district of 28,000 students from kindergarten through high school, has registered 1,200 children who are new to this country since September 2016. "There are times," she said, "when it is challenging to fully understand out-of-country records."

Juan Griles, the head coach of the Eastside boys team who is currently suspended with pay, did not return phone calls for this story. He strongly denied any wrongdoing in an interview last month.

"Everything we do here is legit," Griles said. "Paperwork, I have no problems with anything. People can make allegations all the time. But as far as me jeopardizing losing my job, no way. I have a master's degree. I've been here seven years. That will never happen. We do everything above board."

The transcript questions are the latest development in a fast-moving story that has rocked New Jersey high school basketball. On Feb. 6, NJ Advance Media reported the two students with suspicious transcripts and four other players from overseas were living with Griles in a two-bedroom condominium, prompting multiple state investigations.

Then, on Feb. 24, another NJ Advance Media report sparked new questions about the eligibility and immigration status of overseas players -- boys and girls -- suddenly arriving in Paterson since 2013. In most cases, the players lived with coaches and district employees.

Paterson officials took immediate action after both stories, suspending coaches and athletic department officials. The Eastside girls and boys teams were pulled from the state tournament, and John Wallace, a former New Jersey Supreme Court justice, was hired to investigate the situation for the Paterson school district.

Wallace, according to multiple sources, has requested all transcripts for athletes as part of his review. One official who saw the documents said "the paperwork is an absolute mess" with blurry copies, handwritten notes and incomplete information. In at least one case, a student-athlete also was classified into a grade lower than he registered or was on track to enter at Eastside.

In the case of the Nigerian player whose schoolwork from Idaho was misrepresented, his official transcript is a blurry and light copy that someone -- presumably an Eastside official -- had written over. The new markings highlight the student's class schedule.

The players' documents contain other inconsistencies.

One student lists assistant coach Alberto Maldonado as his guardian, but on the bottom of a class schedule in the same student folder, a handwritten notation reads, "Lives with Griles. Says Griles has records."

A screen shot of a document obtained by NJ Advance Media. The paperwork from Eastside is "an absolute mess," according to one official who has seen it, with blurry transcripts and handwritten notes.

That student had 23.75 credits on Nov. 28, according to a printout of the official transcript, but 32.5 three weeks later after a new transcript was obtained from a school in Puerto Rico.

At least one of the player's transcripts was updated 11 days after the initial NJ Advance Media report and five days before school officials met informally with New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association officials to discuss the situation.

But one document stands out.

A player's official transcript shows a below-average student -- Ds in English and Algebra, Cs in World History and Intro to Technology -- at a secondary school in Nigeria during the 2015-2016 school year. That player, however, was attending school more than 7,000 miles away that year, in Idaho, according to Genesis Prep Academy principal Chris Finch.

The player's forged 2015-16 transcript, based on a side-by-side comparison, is a sloppy copy of the student's grades from three years earlier and a continent away. The numbered grades -- 163 for English Language, 153 for Mathematics, etc. -- are identical where legible in 14 categories. The signatures on the blurry documents, as well as the official seal from the school, are perfect matches.

Only the school year is different.

"(I)t is our understanding that the quality of the document submitted to the district was extremely poor (not easy to read), which resulted in a staff member handwriting the course names to ensure these were clear on the transcript," Corallo said in her statement. "The one grade change from a D to a C appears to have been human error.

"Still, it is very concerning that the session dates on the version of this document that we were provided during the registration process is quite different than the other version that you shared with me."

A second student's transcript shows he received 30 credits for his time in Idaho last year upon his enrollment as a sophomore at Eastside. But that same student's transcript from Idaho, marked up with handwritten notes, shows just 25 credits.

To be eligible to play in fall and winter sports in New Jersey high schools, students must earn 30 credits the prior school year. There is no explanation in the Paterson documents for the discrepancy or how the transfer earned the extra five credits, raising questions within the school district about procedures followed at Eastside.

"They would look at the document, do whatever they had to do, and the kid would be eligible," said one Paterson official familiar with the transcripts who asked to remain anonymous.

But Corallo said the discrepancies could be from the differing weight applied to certain classes in Paterson and elsewhere.

"In some cases course credits do not 'transfer' at the same value (i.e. a math course could be 2.5 in one country or state, but may be valued at 5.0 here)," she said in the statement.

Kayleen Egan, a school law attorney for the Parker McKay firm in Mount Laurel, looked into the situation for the NJSIAA, the state's governing body for high school sports.

Egan wrote in an email to NJSIAA officials that she had spoken to Finch, who informed her that "no one from Paterson, or any other school for that matter, contacted Genesis (Prep) to get the boys' transcripts or files until February 7, when (Eastside athletic director Gregory Cooper) asked Genesis to fill out the transfer form."

The NJSIAA requested transcripts from Eastside but did not receive them, according to an official. The lack of documentation eventually persuaded Paterson to pull the boys team from the state tournament before a hearing, the official said.

"Given inquiries by multiple agencies -- including Justice John Wallace's investigation -- NJSIAA is fully cooperating with all parties including Justice Wallace who has been empowered to uncover facts and determine the authenticity of documents, and we look forward to providing him whatever support he requires," the NJSIAA said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Clearly, this is an extremely serious matter, the potential repercussions of which extend far beyond the sphere of athletics. The NJSIAA's area of responsibility is limited to scholastic sports, but we do urge all involved parties to refrain from jurisdictional concerns and work together in the best interests of the young people affected by this situation."

The possible academic misconduct appears to have occurred in Eastside's School of Government and Public Administration. In 2016, a former vice principal filed a lawsuit against the Paterson school district, alleging principal Karen Johnson discouraged "foreign or first generation" students from taking standardized tests to manipulate the school's overall scores.

In addition, a teacher at the same school was recently suspended for three years after he was accused of giving students answers on standardized tests. Immediately after the state issued a report on the accusations, that teacher, Banmali Banjeree, was promoted to a district supervisor.

Matthew Stanmyre may be reached at mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com. Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.