NEW YORK, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- A New York college instructor has been arrested for allegedly selling better grades to his less than stellar students.
Elvin Escano, a computer science teacher at LaGuardia Community College, could face seven years in state detention after he allegedly accepted money and material goods in exchange for raising Fs to As, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.
The charges against Escano in the 137-count indictment include grand larceny, forgery, falsifying records and conspiracy.
The alleged payments ranged from $200 to $2,500, sometimes including valuable material goods such as expensive wine, the Daily News said. The teacher then allegedly tampered with the students' grades in the registrar's computer records system.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Escano "violated his own professional ethics, destroyed the public's trust and confidence in the school and its grading system and unfairly smeared the reputation of honest students."
Escano, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, was held Wednesday on $100,000 bail and was forced to surrender his U.S. passport.
