A high school assistant principal and her teen daughter have been arrested in Florida after they allegedly hacked student votes in order to name the daughter as the school’s homecoming queen. Laura Rose Carroll, 50, and her daughter, 17, were said to have illegally gained access to student accounts to change the votes at Tate High School in Pensacola, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. They’re now facing serious charges for their crimes, WKRG reports.
- Carroll and her daughter are in pretty big trouble. Both have been charged with offense against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks, and electronic devices, unlawful use of a two-way communication device, criminal use of personally identified information, and conspiracy to commit these crimes. Not only that, but Carroll’s involvement is even worse as she’s the assistant principal at Belleview Elementary in Pensacola.
- Police began their investigation in November 2020. They soon discovered that Carroll had access to the school board’s FOCUS program, which is what she and her daughter used to break into student accounts and change the votes. Hundreds of the votes for Tate High School’s Homecoming Court were flagged up as fraudulent as 117 of the votes received all came from the same IP address that just so happened to be linked back to Carroll’s phone.
- They nearly got away with it. While Carroll’s daughter, who’s not being named because she’s a minor, was eventually crowned homecoming queen, she wasn’t too slick about her ill-begotten title. Friends say that she openly admitted breaking into the FOCUS system to cast votes from others’ accounts to sway things in her favor.
- If charged, Carroll and her daughter could face hefty fines or even time behind bars. Carroll was booked into Escambia County Jail and released after posting a $6,000 bond, while her daughter was arrested and taken to Escambia Regional Juvenile Detention Center. The investigation remains ongoing and no court date has been announced as of yet, but given the number of charges both the women face, I doubt the homecoming queen title was worth it.
