Florida Teen Accused of Rigging Homecoming Queen Election With Mom to Be Tried as Adult

A Florida teen who allegedly rigged a homecoming election is being charged as an adult. Emily Rose Grover was arrested in March and was only 17 years old at the time.

Grover turned 18 last April. With this, the state of Attorney's Office in Escambia County confirmed Tuesday that she would be tried as an adult.

Emily Rose Grover allegedly rigged the election with her mother, Laura Rose Carroll, 50. She and her mother face multiple felony charges from the October homecoming vote at Tate High School in Pensacola, Florida, Click Orlando reported.

The Florida Teen and Her Mother

Carroll had access to the school's district internal system and used it to place fraudulent votes for her daughter to win. Carroll was a school employee, working as an assistant principal at Bellview Elementary School in the same county.

Hundreds of votes for the school's homecoming court were identified as fraudulent, investigators discovered in October. There were 117 votes from the same IP address within a short period of time, a local Boston report said.

Investigators also discovered evidence of unauthorized access to the system connected to Carroll's cellphone and computers at her home. On top of the 117 votes, there were 246 votes cast for homecoming court from those devices.

Many Tate students told investigators that Emily Rose Grover had used her mother's system access for years. She was also watching her mother access the records. Since August 2019, Carroll's account had accessed 372 high school records, and 339 of those were Tate students.

Carroll and Grover are charged with offenses against computer systems, computer networks, and electronic devices.

They were also charged with unlawful use of a two-way communications device, criminal use of personally identifiable information, as well as conspiracy to commit those offenses, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel report.

Carroll remains free on a $6,000 bond, while Grover is free on a $2,000 bond. Prosecutors said that the mother and daughter each face a maximum of a 16-year jail sentence.

Fraud In Florida

In a 2019 report, a study released by a nonprofit showed that Florida ranked number one in the country when it comes to reported cases of fraud.

Security.org examined the 10 most common forms of identity theft, fraud, and financial scams in every state to determine to rank, Tampa Bay Business Journal reported.

The study also found that Florida ranked number four in the nation for identity theft reports. Two-thirds of the overall American population has been reported to be victims of fraud.

Reported fraud cases increased by four percent in 2018 and compared to 2017. In addition, 1.4 million Floridians lost more than $84 million of fraudulent activity last year, with Tampa Bay ranking number 14 in the overall fraud with 22,683 complaints filed.

Imposter scams are the most common single type of financial fraud or theft in the U.S., accounting for 17.9 percent of all incidents report.

The second most commonly reported type of scam is debt collection, accounting for about 16 percent of the national mix.

In 2017, it showed a 24 percent decline over the levels reported.

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