Law student convicted of theft now charged with altering court record to make it look like he was acquitted, DA says

A Suffolk University Law School student who got a suspended sentence in 2014 for stealing a laptop from the school now faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of charges he replaced the "guilty" verdict slip in his court records with one reading "not guilty," the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

A Suffolk County grand jury indicted David Scher, 33, of Brighton, earlier this month on charges of perjury, tampering with a document for use in an official proceeding, forgery, and two counts of uttering a false document. He is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow in Suffolk Superior Court.

Paper court records, which continue to be used, are also public documents: Use the database-lookup computers in court clerk's offices and a worker will get you the folder with all the paperwork. According to the DA's office, at some point after he was found guilty:

Scher returned to the Boston Municipal Court clerk's office, made a copy of the jury's verdict slip, and altered it to reflect a "not guilty" verdict. He then allegedly replaced the original verdict slip in the clerk's file with the copy.

And then, prosecutors charge, Scher began using the altered record to try to erase the damage done by his conviction:

After making the switch, prosecutors say, the doctored verdict slip began to appear in a variety of matters. It was mentioned in Scher's appeal of his larceny conviction; it was presented as authentic in a probation violation hearing following his arrest in an unrelated case; it was provided to Suffolk University Law School as part of Scher's effort to obtain the diploma that had been denied him in light of his conviction; and it accompanied a complaint Scher filed with the state's Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, which oversees arrest and conviction records. This latter complaint, in which Scher allegedly claimed that he was acquitted at trial, was signed under the pains and penalties of perjury.

But Scher could only take his alleged scheme so far because Massachusetts now also maintains records electronically - and his electronic records continued to show the conviction - spokesman Jake Wark explains:

The Department of Criminal Justice Information Services maintains the accurate, up-to-date, and always-accessible database of convictions. That was the database that Scher allegedly complained held an inaccurate entry on his record. The Department of Probation keeps computerized records as well. The scheme began to unravel when the allegedly-doctored jury slip began to appear in support of various legal proceedings. Among them was a hearing after Scher was arrested for leaving the scene of a car accident in July 2014, held to determine whether he violated the terms of his suspended sentence on the larceny conviction.

Innocent, etc.