Ryan ChartrandA Cal Poly business student charged with grade fraud scheme by Contra Costa County prosecutors last week is in custody at the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, Calif.
Julian Revilleza, 25, is being held on six counts of illegally altering data, said detention facility officials. His bail is set at $250,000.
Revilleza allegedly led a cash-for-grades scheme with 33 current and former Diablo Valley College students.
Investigators said that students at DVC allegedly paid Revilleza hundreds of dollars to alter their grades so that they would be eligible to transfer to universities like UC Berkeley, UC Davis and San Francisco State. Grade changes dating back to 2001 have been found.
DVC administrators have sent corrected transcripts to each university that had accepted the charged students.
Cal Poly is currently investigating whether or not Revilleza changed his own grades to receive admission. Bill Durgin, Cal Poly provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, could not comment on Revilleza’s actions at this point.
However, he said that Cal Poly did receive the revised transcripts from DVC.
“We have received official information from Diablo Valley College and are currently evaluating that information against the information we have on file,” Durgin said.
Without commenting specifically on Revilleza, Durgin said that generally if a student was admitted to Cal Poly based on false records, they would be dismissed.
“If we received transfer information that was incorrect, it would be corrected,” Durgin said.
The Contra Costa Times reported that Revilleza surrendered on July 26 when he entered the Contra Costa County Superior Court for an afternoon hearing. At that time, he was charged with 23 felony counts of fraud and conspiracy. He pleaded not guilty.
If convicted of all the charges, he faces almost 70 years in prison.
Investigators said that the grade scheme began in 2001 when suspect Richard Nixon, a former admissions office student employee and current student at DVC, allegedly changed the grades of four other students and his own. Those students have graduated or transferred and received degrees from other colleges.
Revilleza allegedly became involved in late 2004 as a student worker who solicited buyers word-of-mouth and had “middlemen” who arranged deals with students and relayed orders to him.
Contra Costa County prosecutors said that Revilleza allegedly changed grades under the computer user IDs of career employees, but then changed grades under his own user ID until the end of 2005 when he transferred.
In 2006, Revilleza allegedly recruited DVC student employee Jeremy Tato to continue the grade fraud and e-mailed “grade change orders” to Tato and paid him for his work.
Also in 2005, former student employee Erick Martinez allegedly changed his own grades as well as the grades of two other students. He worked in the admissions office until the day the grade fraud operation was discovered in 2006.
Investigators said that Revilleza, Tato, Martinez and Pawel Trybilo are all still in custody, while the remaining suspects have all posted bail.
Warrants are still outstanding for six of the 34 DVC students and former students implicated, investigators said. All of the students in the alleged conspiracies are scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 9 to set a date for a preliminary hearing.