Teen who “rigged” homecoming queen election getting charged as adult

Image of Grover and Carroll - YouTube screenshot (courtesy of Good Morning America)

Teen who “rigged” homecoming queen competition getting charged as adult

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ESCAMBIA COUNTY, FL – A now-18-year-old woman that was arrested when she was 17, along with her mother, for allegedly hacking into school databases to rig a homecoming election at her high school is reportedly being charged as an adult for the alleged fake ballot fiasco to attain her high school tiara.

This is something that could only happen in Florida.

Authorities proclaim that a former high school student, Emily Rose Grover, in concert with her mother, Laura Rose Carroll, went so far as to hacking into various school files and databases to rig a homecoming election to see Grover crowned homecoming queen.

Back in March of 2021, Grover was 17-years-old when she was arrested, along with her mother, under numerous charges which included unauthorized use of computers, unlawful use of a two-way communication device and criminal use of personally identifiable information.

Grover reportedly turned 18 in April of 2021, which Assistant State Attorney John Molchan confirmed that Grover is going to be charged as an adult for her alleged role in this fake ballot casting scheme.

Once again, the impetus of this alleged criminal conduct is by far the most ridiculous thing one could imagine.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement started an investigation back in November of 2020 after the Escambia County School District had reached out to the FDLE to report unauthorized access into hundreds of student accounts.

Through the course of the investigation, the FDLE found that Caroll and Grover had somehow been able to gain access to what’s known as student FOCUS accounts.

Which this access, according to law enforcement officials, was enabled due to the fact that Caroll was an assistant principal at Bellview Elementary School.

According to the FDLE, Caroll and her daughter Grover used this access to rig the 2020 homecoming event at Grover’s high school:

“In October 2020, hundreds of votes for Tate High School’s Homecoming Court voting were flagged as fraudulent, with 117 votes originating from the same IP address within a short period of time.

Agents uncovered evidence of unauthorized access to FOCUS linked to Carroll’s cell phone as well as computers associated with their residence, with a total of 246 votes cast for the Homecoming Court. Multiple students reported that the daughter described using her mother’s FOCUS account to cast votes.

The investigation also found that beginning August 2019, Carroll’s FOCUS account accessed 372 high school records and 339 of those were of Tate High School students.”

According to local reports, Grover had reportedly bragged to her peers about how easily her mother could access student records. One student reportedly told investigators:

“She looks up all of our group of friends grades and makes comments about how she can find out our test scores all the time.”

Another student that investigators spoke with reportedly stated that Grover seemed rather nonchalant about her mother abusing her access to the FOCUS database:

“She did not make it seem like logging in was a big deal and was very comfortable with doing so.”

To get an understanding of how sensitive some of these records are, local reports related to the incident show that FOCUS records contain everything from grades, medical history, disciplinary action, personnel information, emergency contacts – the gamut of highly personal information.

Obviously, Grover wound up getting expelled from Tate High School for allegedly rigging the homecoming election.

But now based upon this alleged homecoming scheme, both Grover and her mother are facing serious felonies in the realm of cybercrimes that could land them in prison for years – not to mention the copious amount of fines associated with some of these offences.

But at least Grover was able to be homecoming queen.

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In other news coming from Florida, University of Florida who were recently interviewed by a Campus Reform correspondent delivered some interesting remarks regarding LeBron James after being confronted with the NBA star’s hypocrisy. 

Here’s that previous report.

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FLORIDA – NBA superstar LeBron James is facing continuing attacks for his anti-police rhetoric, this time from the students at the University of Florida who called him “hypocritical” for using police escorts.

Campus Reform reporter Leana Dippie posted a YouTube video asking students if they agreed with the basketball star’s recent comments denouncing police.

Several students said they agreed some degree of police reform was needed but agreed that James’ use of police escorts for his personal security and protection was hypocritical.

James has been open and vocal about his anti-police views. As recently as April 21, he tweeted:

“ I’m so damn tired of seeing black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because it’s being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer.  it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.”

Despite his harsh words for police, the basketball celebrity seems to trust and depend on the police for his own safety.

In 2013, he was photographed walking through the streets of Chicago surrounded by a personal escort of police officers.

Again in 2013, “the King” used a police escort complete with blocking traffic to get to a concert. TMZ reported that on the way to a Jay Z and Justin Timberlake concert in Miami, James received a police escort on the wrong side of the road to beat the traffic.

James even memorialized praise of the officers for the traffic assist in an Instagram video captioned:

“They treat us so well! Needed it cause (sic) traffic was nuts!!”

Students at the University of Florida were not happy with the Los Angeles Lakers player. Asked if James was engaging in hypocrisy, one student said:

“I guess so, but I don’t really think that much, because I think he was referring to (the) general public, and, like, public police forces. I see the point, but I think he’s using that for his own security, and he knows, and he trusts them, rather than referring to, like, the public police forces done bad things for bad reasons (sic).”

When the said student was told that the police used by James were “public police,” the student changed tune:

“Yeah, I can see how, like, it can be hypocritical in some sense.”

Another student said initially that he agreed with James that there were problems within policing that needed to be changed:

“Yeah, there is a lot of systemic violence involved with the system. I believe that the way the system is structured does attribute to that.”

However, when given a little more information regarding James’ security practices, the student shifted his opinion:

“I think that, in some sense, the extent that he went to could be hypocritical.”

The same student said that James, like many celebrities, is out of touch with average Americans:

“The amount of money, and the amount of influence that they have is not at all correlated with basically what the average person experiences. Their experience is going to be much different, so I don’t think they can comment on what the average person does, compared to what they do.”

Several other students had similar reactions to the questions posed by Campus Reform.

James received backlash last month after tweeting a photograph of a Columbus, Ohio police officer who was present during the shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant, who was attacking another girl with a knife. James wrote in the post, ”YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY,” in all-caps. He soon after deleted the post.

Following the tweet, police across the country started to satirize James in TikTok and other social media posts, expressing the opinion of law enforcement that the basketball player should leave policing to law enforcement professionals.

James has not commented on the Campus Reform video.

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About The Author

Gregory Hoyt is an I.T. Marketing and Sales professional based out in Sierra Vista, Arizona. While being a staunch and outspoken advocate of law enforcement and first responders, Gregory Hoyt also has the experience of having spent nearly 5 years in prison as well. Since then, he's used his unique perspective to offer support and commentary about the criminal justice system. When not working or combating bad ideas, Hoyt also leisurely studies economics, history, and law.

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