EXCLUSIVE: Philly police recruit who planned to cheat on written exam speaks out

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Ten cadets at the Philadelphia Police Academy have resigned after they allegedly planned to cheat on a written exam, officials confirm to Action News.

Authorities say one cadet obtained answers to the department exam and distributed those answers to others. However, the 10 cadets never got to take the test.

An internal investigation was launched after police learned of their plan to cheat, but all 10 cadets in question resigned one-by-one by the end of last week.

Olivier Mardi says he got an answer key from another cadet, who had been through this portion of the instruction but was put into their class after returning to training earlier this year.

Mardi says he was not the only one to get the answer key.

"The whole class, the whole class had it, like the whole class," said Mardi.

Since the test was supposed to be an open book test, he said he wrote it on the back of the book.

According to Mardi, the test was supposed to be June 6, they got the cheat sheet June 5. The very same day he got caught.

"Our SO screamed everybody get out, get out, get out. I come outside and they went through everybody's backpack, locker," recounted Mardi.

"Did they find the answer key in your back pack?" asked reporter Christie Ileto.

"Yes," said Mardi.

"Everybody knows about the answer key. Some recruits had memorized it instead of writing it down," he added.

The incident is yet another black eye for the department who last week yanked 72 officers off the street amid a probe of controversial Facebook posts.

"I'm not saying I was right for writing the answers down, I think it's not fair," said Mardi.