Any election fraud is serious business, apparently.
A teen charged as an adult has pleaded not guilty to multiple felony counts stemming from a Florida high school homecoming queen contest that prosecutors allege she and her mother rigged by hacking into a school district computer system.
If convicted, Emily Rose Grover, 18, a student at Tate High School in Pensacola, faces a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison, officials said.
The state attorney’s office in Escambia County, Florida, confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that Grover has been charged as an adult.
“She was 17 when the offense occurred, but shortly after they picked her up she turned 18,” a spokesperson for the state attorney’s office said.
Grover and her mother, Laura Rose Carroll, 50, an assistant principal at an Escambia County elementary school, are scheduled to be arraigned in First Judicial Circuit Court in Pensacola on May 14.
Defense attorney Randall Etheridge, who’s representing both women, told ABC News on Wednesday that he’s already filed written not-guilty pleas with the court. He said he’s also requested a jury trial.
“These are good people. They’re not crazy as some people are trying to depict them. They’re basically decent people,” said Etheridge, adding that Grover’s father and Carroll’s husband is one of his best friends and that he’s representing them pro bono.