Guilty Pleas in Fake N.Y. College Grades
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[##_1L|1355904092.jpg|width="130" height="90" alt=""|_##]Two former college students avoided jail when they pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge related to paying school officials to falsify their grades and transcripts. Uzi Azizov, 22, and Boris Yakubov, 25, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor state charge of falsifying business records. Each was sentenced to seven days of community service and fined $1,000.
The two former Touro College undergraduates were among 10 people indicted by a grand jury in July in a scheme to use the city college's computer system to change grades and create fake degrees in exchange for money.
Azizov admitted during his plea that in January he paid a Touro official to change his grades. Prosecutors said when Azizov was arrested his grade point average had jumped to 3.63 from 1.23 because of the transcript changes.
Yakubov admitted he paid a college official in February to falsify his records. Prosecutors said when Yakubov was arrested that he bought a fake transcript showing he had earned a master's degree from Touro's Graduate School of Education and Psychology.
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in announcing the indictments that the defendants included Touro's former director of admissions, the former director of the school's computer center and three public school teachers.
The indicted school officials created or altered records for at least 50 people since January 2007, Morgenthau said, charging fees of $3,000 to $25,000 for better or deleted grades and for bachelor's and master's degrees. Cases involving those defendants are pending.
Lawyers for Azizov and Yakubov said that they had no comment as they left court Thursday.
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