While students at FAMU in 2010, Wright and his co-defendants, Carliss Pereira, 22, of Tallahassee, and Carl Coutard, 22, of Miami Shores, Florida, discovered a means of accessing the financial aid accounts of other students in FAMU’s iRattler computer system.
The defendants obtained the usernames, passwords, and other personal identifying information of their fellow students by taking paperwork discarded in the trash bins near the FAMU computer help desk, by gathering information from public sources on the internet, and by tricking FAMU employees and the students themselves into providing this information.
The defendants used the information to log on to the financial aid accounts of students who were scheduled to receive financial aid refunds. The defendants then changed the bank account and routing numbers in the victims’ financial aid accounts to divert the victims’ financial aid refunds to pre-paid debit cards held by the defendants. In all but a few cases, FAMU was able to reverse engineer the fraudulent transfers.
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Pamela C. Marsh |
Ms. Marsh expressed her deep gratitude to the FBI, the FAMU Police Department, the United States Department of Education – Office of Inspector General, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the United States Secret Service, whose excellent investigative work resulted in these prosecutions. Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Rhew-Miller prosecuted the case.
Statement from FAMU
Florida A&M University has implemented additional security measures related to students setting up direct deposit accounts since the 2010 incident. The U.S. Attorney's Office involvement in issuing indictments indicates that FAMU is serious about addressing the alleged criminal acts. As a point of clarification, the individuals did not hack into the system, but gained access to student personal information using deceptive tactics and improperly used the information to commit the alleged criminal acts. Since implementing the security measures, FAMU has not had any repeat incidents.SOURCE: tallahassee.com
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