All brilliance can be used for the forces of either good or evil. Three computer savvy Florida A & M students have been charged with using their skills to hack into the school’s computer system and changing grades and residency statuses of ninety students.

Christopher Jacquette, Lawrence Secrease, and Marcus Barrington were indicted this fall for changing 650 grades between June 2007 and December 2007. Those guys were keeping themselves busy!

 The FAMUan reports:

 According to Supervisory U.S. Attorney Karen Rhew, Christopher Jacquette, 27, and Lawrence Secrease, 22, are expected to be sentenced Feb. 17 after they pled guilty on all charges.

 

Rhew said the third person indicted, Marcus Barrington, 23, did not plead guilty and is scheduled for a trial the same day as the others.

 

The three FAMU students were indicted in October last semester for hacking into the university's computer system to change grades and residency statuses (for out-of-state students) from June to December 2007.

 

The trio changed the grades of 90 FAMU students, about 650 grades overall.

 

Seacrease pled guilty Dec. 5 and was released on a signature bond while Jacquette pled guilty Dec. 12 as and is still being held, according to Rhew.

 

Jacquette recently violated conditions of his release and has been held in an unspecified local jail until his sentence.

 

Rhew said federal officials have not looked into whether the university changed grades and residency back to the way their before.

 

"The university is responsible for anything with the grades. We are only responsible for the criminal case," she said.

 

FAMU's General Counsel Avery McKnight was unavailable for comment.

 

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the three could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for conspiracy and an additional five years for unauthorized access of a protected computer. Also, they could face another two years for aggravated identity theft.

Somehow, I see a movie in the works based on the exploits of these three guys. It would be kind of like a combination of that movie “The Perfect Score” about the group of kids that cheat on the SATs and the film about the MIT students that figured out how to win big at the casino, “Bring Down the House.”

I vote they cast Brody Jenner and his band of lard headed buddies from Bromance to play Jacquette, Secrease, and Barrington. This way, if they guys sell their story to a film production company, they can pay off those hefty lawyers’ fees.