The man accused of taking hundreds of certification exams in a statewide teacher certification cheating scandal has had his court date moved to Friday.
Nicholas Newton was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning. However, his appearance was moved to Friday, Nov. 1.
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It’s unclear why officials decided to move the appearance, but Newton will now appear on the same day as coconspirators Tywana Gilford Mason and Darian Nikole Wilhite who are among the five people arrested as a part of the scandal.
Mason and Wilhite have not been arrested. They were both proctors at different testing sites. They’re accused of taking bribes to look the other way and allow the cheating.
Newton served as an assistant principal at Booker T. Washington High School, a Houston ISD campus. Vincent Grayson, who is accused of being the ringleader of the operation, was the head basketball coach at the same school.
Grayson had his bond set at $300K and must wear an electronic monitor. He’s also forbidden to go within 200 feet of any teacher testing site in Harris County.
LaShonda Roberts, an assistant principal at Jack Yates High School, was arrested at her school Monday after the Harris County District Attorney revealed the teacher cheating scheme. Roberts is accused of recruiting teachers who’d either failed their certification tests or were afraid they wouldn’t be able to pass.
Grayson and Roberts bonded out of jail Wednesday. Newton remained on a $200K bond.
Investigators say Grayson took in more than a million dollars over the last four years. He’s accused of charging teachers $2,500 and bribing test proctors at two different locations. On specific test dates, the teachers would come to the test site, show their ID and sign in. Then they’d leave and Newton would take the test for them. For his part, investigators say Newton was paid $188K over that span of time. The scheme ended when a Good Samaritan who’d heard about the scheme got in touch with investigators. They caught Newton red-handed at a test site, taking not one, but two tests that day. Investigators say he confessed, along with 20 of the teachers who obtained fraudulent certifications.
Court documents state Newton took an estimated 430 fraudulent tests, which put more than 210 teachers into classrooms all over the state, who were not certified.
Newton has been charged with two counts of organized criminal activity.
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