Emily Grover: Teen arrested for rigging Tate High's homecoming queen contest is now suing school
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA: A teen who was detained on suspicion of manipulating the results of her high school's homecoming queen election says she plans to sue both the school's administration and the police force. Emily Grover, 18, and her mother, a vice principal of the school, were detained in March 2021 for allegedly breaking into student records to cast hundreds of fictitious votes. The accusations against Florida's Tate high school homecoming queen from Pensacola were dropped after she finished a monitored program without raising a defense. The adolescent, however, claims she will sue the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and her public school system for making a false arrest and violating her civil rights after she was denied a spot at university due to the event.
After the "homecoming theft" controversy broke last year, the University of Western Florida withdrew its complete scholarship offer to Emily. Her mother, 50-year-old Laura Carroll, was also detained and consequently fired from her position as vice principal of an elementary school. Carroll, at the time, had access to student records from every school in the district, including the high school her daughter attended. Students' grades, medical histories, test results, attendance, disciplinary actions, personnel information, emergency contacts, timetables, and student ID numbers are all stored in the system. In addition, students voted for the homecoming queen using an application called Election runner, which was connected to it.
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At the time, Emily admitted to boasting to reporters that she could access their records and view their grades for years. In a Florida Department of Law Enforcement statement, a student claimed, "I have known since freshman year that Emily Grover logs into her mom's school account to get grades and test results."
"She looks up the grades of all of our friends in the group and makes comments about how she can always locate our test results," one acquaintance said. According to one commenter, she seemed to think that checking in was not a big thing and was completely at ease doing it.
Agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found proof that Carroll's administrator account had been used to gain unauthorized access to student data. Investigations ultimately revealed that Carroll had accessed 372 high school records since 2019, 339 of which belonged to Tate students. In March of last year, felony hacking and fraud charges were brought against Emily Grover and her mother, Laura Carroll. However, Grover's lawyer, Marie Mattox, has now claimed that her client is innocent of any criminal activity and that she wants a fresh start.
The claims crushed the teen girl's life, and she is now trying to put the incident behind her, Mattox said, adding that Emily's completion of the supervised program did not indicate her guilt. Grover has filed a Notice of Intent in Escambia County, Florida, stating her intention to sue the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and her public school system to clear her name and demonstrate her innocence.