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Florida Mother, Daughter Accused Of Trying To Rig Homecoming Court Election

MIAMI (CBSMiami/CNN) - A high school student in Pensacola and her mother were arrested after they reportedly tried to rig the school's homecoming court election.

Laura Rose Carroll, 50, was arrested Monday and booked into the Escambia County Jail with a bond of $8,500. Her 17-year-old daughter was taken into custody and transferred to the Escambia Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it was contacted in November 2020 by the Escambia County School District over allegations of unauthorized access to hundreds of student accounts.

Investigators reportedly found Carroll, an assistant principal at Bellview Elementary, and her daughter, a student at Tate High used Carroll's district-level access to enter accounts, where hundreds of fraudulent votes were cast for the Taft homecoming court. The votes were flagged as fraudulent when 117 votes allegedly originated from the same IP address within a short period of time. Authorities reported that FDLE agents found evidence of unauthorized access linked to Carroll's cellphone as well as home computers.

Investigators said they found almost 250 fraudulently cast votes for the homecoming court.

"Multiple students reported that Carroll's daughter described using her mother's account to cast votes," according to an FDLE statement.

The investigation also found that beginning August 2019, Carroll's account allegedly accessed 372 high school records and 339 of those belonged to students at Tate, the FDLE release said.

Carroll and her daughter were each charged with offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks and electronic devices; unlawful use of a two-way communications device; criminal use of personally identifiable information; and conspiracy to commit these offenses, the release said. All but the conspiracy charge are listed as third-degree felonies.

Escambia County Superintendent Tim Smith confirmed to CNN that Carroll has been suspended.

(©2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company, contributed to this report.)

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