Orlando Sentinel

UCF student arrested after grade changed from F to B

- By Gal Tziperman Lotan

A University of Central Florida student who was failing an engineerin­g class is accused of sneaking into a building, illegally logging into the university's grading system and changing his grade to a B.

Sami Ammar, 22, faces a felony charge of accessing a computer electronic device with knowledge that such action is unauthoriz­ed. He turned himself in at the Orange County Jail on Wednesday and was released on bond two hours later.

“We really have nothing to say,” Ammar’s father said when reached by phone Wednesday evening. “It’s an allegation.”

Ammar’s Electronic­s I professor, Chung Young Chan, became suspicious when he received a confirmati­on email from the program he uses to log students’ grades at 11:30 p.m. May 4, UCF police said.

Chan had already approved his grades — and got a confirmati­on email — earlier that day. There was no reason for him to get another email about it when he did, police said.

Chan checked the grading roster and noticed Ammar, to whom he gave an F, then had a B. The professor got an error message when he tried to change the grade back. Chan sent an email to the registrar’s office and the engineerin­g department’s undergradu­ate coordinato­r.

An informatio­n technology employee at the university later traced the IP address for the computer from which the grade was changed to the Mathematic­al Sciences Building, police said.

Just after midnight May 5, an employee called UCF police and said two men he did not recognize were walking around the Mathematic­al Sciences Building. Police did not find the men in the building but did get surveillan­ce camera footage of them walking around inside.

An officer later identified one of them as Ammar, police said. Based on the email, IP address and surveillan­ce video, police arrested Ammar.

Officers also identified the other man in the video but have not been able to speak with him.

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