Columbia University students accused of planning to cheat on GRE

They wanted to take the GRE the easy way. Instead, they stand to do time the hard way.

Two Columbia University seniors were arrested on burglary and other charges on Long Island this week after cops said the pair botched a high-tech plan to cheat on the Graduate Record Exam.

Cops said Bryan Laulicht, 21, of Great Neck, L.I., and Sacha Bokhru, 22, of Albany built a sophisticated radio transmitter, then teamed it with wireless walkie-talkies to transmit questions and answers to and from a classroom where one of the students was taking the test.

Police said the scheme went like this:

Last week, Laulicht went to the Sylvan Learning Center in Garden City, Long Island and sat alone for the computerized version of the GRE in a private room designated for test takers with special needs.

With Bokhru manning a laptop in a van outside, Laulicht hooked up the homemade radio-transmitting device, about the size of a cigar box, to the computer on which he was taking the test.

The device sent images of the questions to the laptop. Bokhru, an engineering major, scrambled to find answers with dictionaries, calculators, encyclopedias and a thesaurus, then whispered them over the walkie-talkie.

Problems with the walkie-talkies cut the effort short and Laulicht, a liberal arts major, aborted the exam.

The pair returned Monday, this time with Bokhru scheduled to take the GRE and Laulicht slated to sit in the van. But police said a learning center administrator caught Laulicht fumbling with the transmitter and notified authorities.

Laulicht and Bokhru could not be reached for comment.

Columbia spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said the students “may be subject to the university’s disciplinary procedures.”

Calls to the Sylvan Center were not returned.

Laulicht and Bokhru were arraigned in Nassau County Tuesday on charges of burglary and unlawful duplication of computer material and released without bail. Cops said the charges could be upgraded.