Top student faces jail time in alleged grade-hacking scheme

Tyler Coyner, 19, is facing anywhere between two and 10 years in jail for allegedly hacking into his high school's computer system to inflate his grades. The Nevada student is one of 13 others facing similar charges. Police allege Coyner also bumped up grades of his friends in exchange for money.

Nye County Sheriff's Office

Kenyon Wallace Toronto Star

Some people will do anything to be at the top of their class.
A Nevada teenager could be facing anywhere between two and 10 years in prison for allegedly hacking into his high school’s computer system to bump up his grades.
Police say 19-year-old Tyler Coyner increased his own grades and those of 12 other students for a fee after somehow obtaining the password for Pahrump Valley High School’s grading program. Police allege that Coyner not only bumped up the grades of his fellow students, but also increased his own grades so dramatically that he qualified as his high school’s salutatorian — a title given to the graduate with the second highest marks in the school.
“Obviously some of the motivation must have come from the competition, but there’s really no way to be certain,” Detective David Boruchowitz of the Nye County Sheriff’s Office told the Star. “He clearly wanted to be the best.”
Boruchowitz said police believe Coyner began to alter the grades over a two-semester period beginning in 2009 during his last year of high school. Coyner and the 12 other students who allegedly paid to have their grades increased — a felony in Nevada — are facing conspiracy and forgery charges that carry punishments of between two and 10 years in prison, Boruchowitz said.
“All that just for changing the grades.”
When a Star reporter contacted Coyner’s residence Monday, a man who answered the phone hung up before a request for comment could be made.
A profile of Coyner in the Pahrump Valley Times, published on the occasion of his appointment as his high school’s salutatorian, quotes the teenager as saying he was keen to go to an Ivy League school — either Harvard or Stanford — with the ultimate goal of becoming a hedge-fund manager.
“Nothing will change for you; you have to make an effort to make a better future,” Coyner told the newspaper. “Being responsible is one of the key things to being successful.”
Of his time at high school, Coyner was quoted as saying: “Even the mistakes I’ve done were worth it.”
The profile reports that Coyner attained a 4.54 grade point average.
In his salutatorian speech, posted on YouTube, Coyner is seen speaking to a crowd about what his high school experience meant to him.
“I changed for the better, learning what it meant to be a student at PVHS and taking initiative in completing assigned work, well sort of,” he tells the audience. “As humans we make mistakes for a reason. So learn from them.”
To add to his worries, Coyner is also facing burglary charges in an unrelated case. Police say that during their investigation into Coyner’s alleged grade-hacking scheme, they executed a search warrant of his dorm room at the University of Nevada, where he now studies. They discovered a stolen television, a fake driver’s licence, and several fake ID cards. Police allege the TV was stolen from a Wal-Mart in Pahrump before Coyner left for university.
Also charged in this investigation is Coyner’s university roommate, 19-year-old Mathew Miller.