Ex-USC Employee Gets 2 Years for Grade Fraud

A former USC employee was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for altering students’ grades through the university’s computer system. The sentencing marked the final chapter in the grade-tampering case, which may have involved as many as 43 students.

Darryl Gillard, 29, of Los Angeles also was given a concurrent 262-day jail sentence and placed on five years’ probation for selling $25 worth of rock cocaine to an undercover officer.

Gillard pleaded guilty in Los Angeles Superior Court last July to one count each of illegal computer access and sale of drugs, but his sentencing was delayed until after he had testified in a federal drug possession and conspiracy trial in Louisville, Ky., for Mehrdad Amini, a co-defendant in the grade-tampering case.

Amini, 29, of Beverly Hills, who had been sentenced last September to two years for his role as the middleman in the USC scheme, was given a five-year federal prison term earlier this summer, Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Plafker said.

Under the plea bargain with Gillard, Plafker agreed to seek no more than two years in prison and “held out the possibility” of a “significantly” shorter sentence if the defendant cooperated with authorities.

Gillard was originally charged with seven counts of illegal computer access between May, 1983, and May, 1984, and had faced a maximum sentence of six years. The prosecution alleged that he was paid between $500 and $2,000 each time he boosted a student’s grades through the computer.

But last January, Gillard was arrested for possession of cocaine, Plafker said, which ruined his chances for leniency, even though he had cooperated in the Los Angeles and federal cases. “I had told him he better stay clean. He didn’t stay clean,” the prosecutor said.

No new drug charges were filed because the evidence was obtained illegally, Plafker said.

The prosecutor said the USC case is now closed. A third defendant, Manuel Roberts, 24, of Los Angeles, fled the state after charges were filed. Although he is believed to be in New York, Plafker said it is unlikely he will be extradited.