Teen gets probation but no jail for hacking Miami-Dade schools

MIAMI – The teen who confessed to hacking Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ online learning system in the fall was sentenced Friday to one year of probation, with a judge also requiring him to enroll in a program for troubled youth.

The judge agreed to withhold adjudication on David Oliveros, 17, who also must attend counseling, do 30 hours of community service and write a letter of apology to students, teachers and the school board.

Last month, Oliveros reached a deal in court to avoid jail time, but the official sentencing didn’t come until Friday.

“I would hope, young man, that you would use your computer smarts into doing something good in the future,” the judge told Oliveros in a virtual court hearing.

He responded: “That’s what I plan to do, your honor.”

The first couple days of online learning in Miami-Dade were full of issues when access was blocked to one of the platforms the district was using. Oliveros, who was 16 at the time, was eventually arrested and confessed to what school officials called eight different distributed denial of service (DDOS) cyberattacks.

It’s believed that he wasn’t acting alone.

“All of this was a mistake on my part,” Oliveros said Friday. “I didn’t mean to cause harm to anyone indirectly [or] directly. And I apologize to my deepest condolences to everyone that has been affected by this in any way.”


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