CSUN Student Faces Criminal Prosecution in Test Cheating : Education: Tony H. Lee admits to falsifying a driver’s license and hiring a UCLA national merit scholar as a stand-in to take economics exams.

A Cal State Northridge student who has admitted he paid a UCLA national merit scholar $400 to take his exams in an economics class faces a criminal charge and possible expulsion from the college.

Tony H. Lee, 20, is scheduled to appear Tuesday in San Fernando Municipal Court to enter a plea on a charge of falsifying a driver’s license, said CSUN Campus Police Chief Stanley Friedman.

The misdemeanor offense carries a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Parousia Liu, 20, the UCLA student Lee paid to take the exam, also is due in court that day on the same charge.

Officials said Lee, who allegedly tried to cover up his scheme by supplying Liu with fake identification, also could be expelled from the university.

“I’ve had other cases of cheating before, but not like this,” said professor Ed McDevitt, Lee’s instructor in the microeconomics class. “This is big-time cheating.”

Campus police arrested the pair earlier this month after the scheme was foiled by an anonymous tip to alert McDevitt that a student might be cheating on exams.

The scheme was hatched at the beginning of this semester after Lee had failed the same class last year.

Both students admitted their part in the scheme.

“What I did was wrong,” Lee said in a telephone interview.

Liu, an economics major, said that Lee approached him in the fall and offered him $400 to take his exams. He said he took Lee’s offer because he was “a little bit pressed for money” living on his own.

“I have a national merit scholarship and get financial aid, but considering cutbacks in the state, it’s not enough, really,” he said. “I work too many hours to study the way I want to study. Tony was just a way to cut back on the hours I wanted to work.”

Relying on notes passed to him from Lee, Liu allegedly showed up to take the first exam Sept. 29. He passed with an 82% grade, McDevitt said. Shortly afterward, McDevitt received the phone call from the anonymous tipster.

With more than 50 students in his class, McDevitt said he did not try to visibly recognize an impostor taking a mid-term exam Nov. 5. Instead, he asked all students to bring their identifications to class.

Police said Liu showed up as Lee, but was unable to provide any identification. McDevitt said he allowed Liu to take the exam after he agreed to bring valid identification to class Nov. 11.

Between the exam and Nov. 11, Friedman said, “the UCLA student provided a photograph of himself to the CSUN student, who went downtown to have a phony driver’s license produced for $275.”

When Liu showed up that day with the fake driver’s license and a phony CSUN identification card and tried to pass himself off as Lee, campus police along with McDevitt were waiting for him.

Liu admitted his part in the ploy after police ran a check on the driver’s license and discovered it was a phony. Lee, who was waiting for Liu elsewhere on the campus, also confessed when confronted by police, Friedman said.

Misdemeanor charges against the pair were filed Thursday, authorities said.

Both students said Thursday that they regretted their actions.

Lee, who is taking four classes at CSUN and two at a community college, said he did not develop the scheme because he could not hack the economics class. He said he failed last semester because his friends encouraged him to ditch class and party.

“I was taking a lot of classes and I just needed help, that’s all,” he said.

Keith D. Evans, chairman of the CSUN economics department, said he would not only recommend expulsion from CSUN for Lee, but outright banishment from the CSU system.

“I find this disgusting,” he said. “A university is supposed to be a place of learning and trust. There is no place in a taxpayer-supported college for students like this.”

Lili Vidal, the acting assistant to CSUN’s vice president for student affairs, said the case is still under investigation. She said discipline for Lee could range from a formal reprimand to expulsion from the university.

UCLA officials said Liu is unlikely to face any academic discipline as a result of his role in the scheme. “We don’t have any jurisdiction over our students off campus,” said Michael Wilding, UCLA’s assistant dean of students. “We might come in and give him a little talk.”