Miami Teen Under House Arrest After Allegedly Hacking Computer to Change Grades
Classmates say they heard rumors of alleged plan to boost GPAs.
May 4, 2014 — -- Classmates of a high school student who allegedly hacked his way into a school computer to change his grade are calling his scheme for a higher GPA "pretty crazy."
Jose Bautisa, 18, is facing eight felony charges after allegedly hacking into his school website and changing the grades for himself and four other students. He was being held under house arrest with a GPS monitor.
"I think the lengths he went to change grades was pretty crazy," Susan Bean, a classmate of Bautista at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami, told ABC News.
Bautista was charged Friday with intellectual property offense and offense against computer users, among other felonies.
The principal at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School turned over Bautista to the police on Thursday, after the student reportedly gave him a written confession.
"There have been whispers going around for the last week or so," Bautisa's classmate Brett Curtis told ABC News. "More and more information started to come out and then we saw that he was arrested."
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A video of Bautista's court appearance on Friday showed the high school senior fidgeting in an orange jumpsuit as the charges against him were read.
A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County public school system said in a statement that further details could not be given out before the investigation concluded.
"This was an isolated incident. Because of the ongoing investigation and for security reasons, details of the incident cannot be shared at this time," read the statement.
Bautista was a senior and scheduled to graduate within a few weeks.
Parry Aftab, an internet privacy and security lawyer, told ABC News she thinks it is unlikely that Bautista will get to graduate.
"My guess is not only will he not graduate with his class. He may not see unsecured daylight for quite a number of years," Aftab said.
Bautista was released from jail after his family posted his $20,000 bail but he was not allowed to leave his house.
Calls to numbers listed as his family members were not answered.