LSAT robbery prompts arrests

By Kamron Barron
Assignment Editor

Two USC students and another suspect were recently arrested after a Law School Admission Test was stolen and allegedly used to provide one of the students with the exam answers, said Bob Taylor, deputy chief of the Department of Public Safety.
The test was given on Feb. 8 at the USC Law Center by Law Services, which is also called the Law School Admission Council. The exam, which is required of applicants for admission to most law schools, was stolen from the location by a suspect allegedly hired by a USC student, Taylor said.
Representatives of LSAC, which is based in Pennsylvania, claim the robbery may have caused at least a half million dollars in damages.
"We initially told the (Los Angeles Police Department) an estimate of a half million to a million dollars and we haven't gone with a final figure yet," said Jim Vaseleck, associate counsel for LSAC. "This was a non-disclosed version of the LSAT. (The damage amount) really is about the cost of developing a new test."
Los Angeles police are currently looking into the matter, Taylor said. Officer Eric Mosher of the LAPD Southwest Division declined to release any information because it could jeopardize the ongoing investigation.
The suspects, whose names are not being released by either USC or LAPD officials, are being charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, Taylor said.
Taylor said one of the student suspects hired a non-USC student at a Hollywood bar to steal the exam from the Law Center during an exam session. The student then took the test in Hawaii and had the answers given to him via his pager, Taylor said. It is not known who actually answered the exam questions that were allegedly given to the student, he said.
The other student allegedly provided the non-student suspect with a fake student identification card in order to gain admittance into the testing area, Taylor said. He said the name of a current engineering student was used on the identification card used to register for the test, but that student was not involved in the robbery.
The suspect who was hired to steal the exam went to the Law Center and sat down to take the exam, Taylor said. About 15 minutes after the test was distributed, he left the room and was pursued by the proctor. Near the intersection of Trousdale and Exposition boulevards, he produced what the proctor described as a switchblade knife in his hand, got into a car and left, Taylor said.
The suspect who allegedly stole the test was arrested on Feb. 21 after the thumbprint taken from him before the exam was run through LAPD computers and identified him, Taylor said. The suspect is from Glendale and is not a USC student, he said.
The student who allegedly made the fake student identification for the suspect was arrested on March 6, and the student who took the test in Hawaii was arrested on March 19, Taylor said. Both were taken out of their classes at USC and were arrested by officers of the LAPD Southwest Division.
Taylor said both criminal and disciplinary actions will be taken against the students.
"The university will go through its normal Student Conduct procedures," said Cynthia Cherrey, associate dean of Student Affairs. "As far as we know, these are allegations as of yet... (They are) going through to find if they're responsible or not."
Despite the arrests, officials are hesitant to place blame on students.
"We don't have any reason to think USC students were involved in the test being stolen," Vaseleck said.
Since the LSAT is administered at the same local times across the country, there is a two-hour time difference between California, where the exam was stolen, and Hawaii, where the student was allegedly paged the answers.
It is not yet known whether the 77 people who took the test that day at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where the student charged took the test, will have to retake it, Vaseleck said. However, he said the students should not worry about it.
Taylor said it is not known whether others received answers to the test.
The exam is a half-day standardized test required for admission to law schools that are members of the LSAC, which include USC, Yale and Harvard's law centers, according to LSAC's web page. Registration fees for this test are $84 and an additional $51 for late registrants.
Approximately 100,000 people take this test annually, Vaseleck said. He said this has been the first case he knows about of an armed robbery of an LSAT test.
"We've had tests go missing in a certain sense, but we don't know if it was a matter of them being lost or stolen," Vaseleck said.