Alleged GRE Cheaters Arraigned, Released

East Campus suitemates Sasha Bakhru, SEAS '03, and Bryan Laulicht, CC '03, put a new price tag on exam preparation this Monday when they were caught using $12,000 worth of high-tech computer gear allegedly to cheat on the Graduate Record Examination.
Detective Sgt. James Bartkowski of the Garden City Police Department, who was called to the Garden City, New York Sylvan Learning center--the site of the incident--said that others may have been involved in the crime. Bartkowski said he was aware of one more individual in particular who may have played a role in the cheating scheme but declined to release the name. GCPD will follow up on this lead in the coming days.
Yesterday, Bakhru and Laulicht were arraigned in the First District court of Hempstead, New York on charges of third degree burglary, a grade-D felony punishable by up to seven years in prison, and unlawful duplication of computer materials, a grade-E felony punishable by up to four years. Rick Henshaw, a representative of the Nassau County District Attorney, said Judge Norman Janowitz released the students under the auspices of the intensive supervised release program, which requires the defendants to stay in regular contact with the court. Henshaw said this program is used in rare cases, typically with youth offenders who have no prior criminal record. If the defendants fail to maintain contact with the court they will be forced to post bail, which Judge Janowitz set at $100,000 for each student, or face jail time.
Despite the extensive national press coverage--the story was picked up by The New York Times, the Associated Press, and Newsday--administrators have remained tight-lipped about the scandal.
University spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said "the criminal investigation has to play out" before the University determines how it will deal with the students.
Any disciplinary action will occur through the Office of Student Affairs, officials in the College and SEAS said. Dean of Student Affairs Chris Colombo could not be reached for comment.
Columbia College Dean of Academic Affairs Kathryn Yatrakis also declined to comment, except to say that if the allegations prove true, they are "sad and disappointing."
SEAS Dean Zvi Galil could not be reached yesterday, but an assistant in his office said that the office would not comment until they had been in communication with law enforcement officials.
Laulicht, who hails from Great Neck, New York, was an Intel science contest semifinalist according to the 1999 Great Neck Record. A high school classmate of Laulicht who declined to be named described him as "studious--always really into math and science."
An acquaintance of Bakhru, a Loudonville, N.Y. native, who also declined to be named, described him as a diligent student, often taking 20 or more credits per semester. Bakhru, a biomedical engineering major, was on the executive board of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers from 2001-2002 and participated in an intensive Columbia University science research program in the summer of 2000.
"From what I understand he's very bright," the student said. "I was very surprised he was involved in this."
Not surprisingly, Bakhru and Laulicht's scheme was extremely sophisticated and, said Bartkowski, meticulously premeditated.
On Nov. 11, Laulicht was set to take the GRE at the Sylvan Learning Center in Garden City. Detective Lieutenant Arthur McGouglin of the Nassau County police, who was also involved in the investigation, said that this Sylvan Learning Center, unlike the one in nearby Manhasset, offers private testing rooms to individuals with handicaps.
Laulicht requested to take the test in a private room, saying he had respiratory problems. Once in the room, officials say Laulicht affixed a device known as a "Dazzler" to the computer on which the test was administered in order to transmit images of the test questions to an outside computer manned by Bakhru. Bakhru was stationed in a van in the Sylvan Learning Center parking lot and took digital photos of the images as a backup.
But things did not go according to plan that day. The walkie-talkies Bakhru and Laulicht had intended to use as a means of communicating malfunctioned. In light of the unanticipated turn of events, Laulicht left the exam early.
Police allege that the two students made a second attempt to beat the exam on Monday. The Educational Testing Service, which creates the test, requires that GRE test-takers wait at least 30 days between taking examinations. On Monday, Bakhru, not Laulicht, entered the Sylvan Learning Center to take the exam. Bakhru, like Laulicht, said he had respiratory problems and asked to take the the test in a private room. The New York Times reported yesterday that while Bakhru waited in the lobby to take the test, Laulicht entered the room to put the Dazzler in place. Laulicht's presence did not go unnoticed, however, and a Sylvan employee alerted Garden City police despite Laulicht's protestations that he had simply dropped his credit card; Laulicht quickly fled and returned when the detectives arrived.
Bartkowski said that once he and other officers called in a special electronics squad, it did not take long to realize that the two were intending to execute an intricate cheating scheme.
"Once we we looked inside the van, we saw an elaborate set up of equipment," Bartkowski said. Shortly thereafter, the students were taken into police custody.
The set-up of equipment in and outside the van was, by all accounts, the stuff of spy movies. The Nov. 20 issue of Newsday reports that police found two feet of coiled antenna, electrical tape, speaker wires, two laptops, five walkie-talkies, a black transmitter box--and, the article quipped, a half-empty bottle of Jose Cuervo and pistachio nuts.
According to the Times, the students told police that the equipment, some of which was designed by Bakhru and Laulicht, cost $12,000, a cost they hoped would be mitigated by scholarships they would obtain based on near-perfect GRE scores.
Bartkowski said he was unaware where the students received these funds but added that the students come from "affluent" families.
"Their goal as we understand was to score as close as possible to a perfect score as they could in order to get funding for graduate school," McGouglin said.
Bartkowski said he questioned the idea that the students were motivated solely by the prospect of high test scores.
"We believe that their primary motive was to capture all the questions. ... Right now that's unverified," Bartkowski said. "When I said to Bakhru, 'I guess you need a lot of help,' he became indignant and said, 'I can pass this test with my eyes closed,' which confirmed that they wanted the test itself."
Neither Laulicht nor Bakhru could be reached for comment yesterday.
Because the GRE format is changed every 8-18 months, Bartkowski speculated that the students could have sold the exam to great profit. ETS spokesman Tom Ewing acknowledged that though the tests are replaced frequently, "there's probably a window of time" when the same tests are used.
Ewing added that the ETS uses a variety of security measures, including photo identification to undermine impersonation attempts and score tracking to detect fraudulent score patterns, but "if someone is determined to undertake something like this, they're going to find a way to do it."
Ewing said he believes the ETS has "a pretty good security system in place" and does not expect their security measures to change.
James Romoser contributed to this article.