How can you quickly make a situation go from bad to even worse? Easy! Involve a former law student eager to obtain the diploma he was subsequently denied because he stole from the school.

David Scher, once a student at Suffolk University Law School, stole a laptop from the school and was convicted of larceny by a jury on March 13, 2014, at the Boston Municipal Court. Scher received a 90-day suspended sentence. Presumably unhappy with his guilty verdict, Scher allegedly returned to the courthouse sometime before October 28, 2014, entered the clerk’s office, and made a copy of the verdict slip. Scher is accused of having changed the verdict on the slip to “not guilty,” and replacing the original form with his altered copy. It was after that supposed switcheroo that prosecutors allege Scher attempted to make his conviction magically disappear.

According to Universal Hub, the faux verdict slip first made an appearance in a hearing in July 2014, after Scher was arrested for leaving the scene of an accident, to determine whether he’d violated the terms of his suspended sentence. Thereafter, the doctored not-guilty slip mysteriously found its way into several legal matters Scher was involved in, including but not limited to the appeal of his larceny conviction and his attempts to obtain the Suffolk Law diploma he was refused thanks to the stolen laptop.

There was just one problem with Scher’s alleged plan: Massachusetts maintains electronic arrest and conviction records, and those records continued to reflect his conviction. According to a statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the altered slip was included in a complaint Scher filed with the Massachusetts Department of Criminal Justice Information Services in an attempt to clear his name due to the “erroneous” electronic record. In that complaint, he claimed he’d actually been acquitted at trial — a complaint he signed under the pains and penalties of perjury.

Scher was indicted earlier this month on charges of perjury, tampering with a document for use in an official proceeding, and forgery. He is expected to be arraigned today.

What’s worse: having shelled out up to six figures of federally backed loan dollars to a law school with nary a degree to show for it, or up to 20 years in prison for a failed scheme to obtain that degree? These are questions David Scher may be asking himself.

Man Once Convicted of Larceny Now Accused of Tampering with Court Record [Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office]

Man is accused of tampering with jury’s verdict against him [Boston Globe]

Law student convicted of theft now charged with altering court record to make it look like he was acquitted, DA says [Universal Hub]