NORTHRIDGE : Students Sentenced in Cheating Scheme

A Cal State Northridge student and his UCLA accomplice were sentenced to two years probation Tuesday after they pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of falsifying a driver’s license to cover up a test-cheating scheme.

San Fernando Municipal Court Commissioner Richard A. Margolin also ordered UCLA student Parousia Liu to pay $445 or spend five days in jail. CSUN student Tony H. Lee, who received credit for one day in jail, was ordered to pay $364 or spend four days in jail. Both fines are due by Feb. 23, court officials said.

The students, both 20, were charged last week after admitting to a scam in which Lee paid Liu, a national merit scholar, $400 to take his exams in an economics class. Lee had failed the class last semester and Liu said he took the offer because he needed the money.

The students had each faced up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Charges were filed last week after Liu produced a phony driver’s license in an attempt to pass himself off as Lee to campus police.

Lee also is facing possible disciplinary action from CSUN, which could include expulsion.

Keith D. Evans, CSUN economics department chairman, said he is not convinced that the penalty was severe enough to encourage Lee “to alter his behavior.”

Neither student was available for comment.