Student Who Paid Friend to Take His SAT Gets 6-Month Jail Term

A 19-year-old who admitted paying a friend $200 to take his college entrance examination was sentenced Friday to six months in jail.

Lawrence H. Adler of Potomac, Md., wept and begged for mercy from Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Paul Weinstein, saying that he was truly sorry. But Weinstein rejected the plea.

“Quite frankly, Mr. Adler, you’ve been conning people all your life,” Weinstein said. “The con ends here today.”

Outside the courtroom, Adler lashed out at reporters. “You guys created this whole mess,” he said.

The Educational Testing Service, which conducts the Scholastic Aptitude Test, said it was the first time that someone had been criminally prosecuted for cheating on an exam.

Weinstein sentenced Adler to 18 months on two perjury-related charges, and then suspended all but six months of the jail term. He also ordered the college student to perform 100 hours of community service, undergo psychotherapy and be placed on three years of probation.

Adler, who attends Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., will have to report to jail after the fall semester ends in December.

The perjury-related charges stemmed from a civil suit Adler brought against ETS after it refused to validate his scores. Adler and a friend, David Srulevich, who is scheduled for sentencing Wednesday, said at a March hearing that Adler took the test last November. But another friend told the testing company that he had been paid to take the test.

The friend earned scores of 660 on the verbal portion of the SAT and 750 on the math section. Those scores placed him in the 99th percentile of students taking the math portion and the 97th percentile for verbal skills.

When Adler took a similar test, the California Achievement Test, in 1989, he ranked in the 37th percentile for math skills and in the 48th percentile for language skills, according to court testimony.

Adler’s sister, Sharon, said her brother was deeply affected by the suicide of his father about 10 years ago. “Larry was his favorite,” she told the judge.

Testimony also revealed that Adler had been sexually molested twice as a child.