MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - A Memphis man has pleaded guilty to taking teacher certification tests for other people.
According to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office in Memphis, investigators first learned of the scam in 2009 when 63-year-old John Bowen took two tests at the same location on the same day using different names.
Prosecutors believe that Bowen was one of several test takers for a cheating ring run by Clarence Mumford Senior that operated in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.
At his guilty plea hearing on Friday, Bowen said he met Mumford in 1994 when Mumford was an assistant principal and Bowen was a substitute.
Bowen said he has taken at least three or four tests each year since 2000 and that he was paid hundreds of dollars per test.