Prosecutors say a Florida high school student accused of rigging a homecoming queen election with her mother, an assistant elementary school principal, is now being tried as an adult after turning 18 last month, according to PEOPLE.
Emily Rose Grover, who was arrested as a juvenile in March, will now be charged as an adult, according to the State Attorney’s Office in Escambia County.
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, an investigation started last fall when the Escambia County School District confirmed improper access to hundreds of student accounts, with 117 votes for Tate High School’s Homecoming Court flagged as bogus for originating from the very same IP address within a short amount of time.
Carroll, an assistant principal at Bellview Elementary School, and Grover, a student at Tate High School, were found to have accessed student information via the school board’s FOCUS program, according to the FDLE.
Investigators were able to connect “evidence of unauthorized access” to Carroll’s mobile phone and home laptop, claiming that 246 votes for the Homecoming Court were registered using those items, according to the department.
According to the Associated Press, Grover and Carroll both face a maximum term of 16 years in prison. Grover is now out on a $2,000 bond, while her mother is out on a $6,000 bond, according to the report.
