The Camden school board last night suspended with pay Roger M. Robinson, who was responsible for overseeing all testing across South Jersey's largest public school system.

Robinson denied to investigators that he tampered with the answer folders and denied any knowledge of tampering by others, according to the report.

The board voted 7-0 in closed session to suspend Robinson, who made no public comments and did not meet with the board.

"My lawyers will take care of this," Robinson said later.

The board's action came after it received a long-awaited report from its investigator, Edward F. Borden Jr., who concluded that "illicit tampering" boosted test results at the Dr. Charles E. Brimm Medical Arts High.

Joseph Carruth, the former principal, said late last night: "I stand by my account of what happened. I was told to cheat by [Assistant Superintendent Luis] Pagan. I told [Board President Philip E.] Freeman about it." Both deny it.

Borden's findings are the latest in a burgeoning cheating scandal that became public last March after The Inquirer questioned unusually high elementary scores and revealed Carruth's charges that he had been pressured to cheat. A separate Inquirer investigation also revealed that Camden has operated under a culture of cheating that dates to the 1980s.

Borden's report marks the first time that an investigation has determined that Brimm's suspiciously high scores were manipulated and the first time someone from the central office has been accused of playing a role.

The report calls "untrue" Carruth's allegations that he was pressured by Pagan to change the math test answers. Carruth, in an interview last March, said he told Pagan he refused to do it. Pagan has publicly insisted that such a conversation never happened. Carruth, Pagan and others have "each been less than fully candid" with Borden and other investigators, the report said.

Borden cited seven reasons and several inconsistencies in Carruth's accounts - but no evidence - that led him to conclude that Carruth should not be believed.

However, Borden noted that his findings supported Carruth's theory that the test tampering likely occurred when the answer sheets were sent from Brimm to the central office.

Based on information gathered during an 10-month investigation, Borden outlined how the test rigging allegedly occurred.

After the answer booklets were sent to Robinson's office on March 8 and 9, 2005, "Robinson and others either changed answers entered by students or inserted correct answers for questions students had not answered," the report said.

In 2004-05, Brimm was among the top performing schools in the region when 92 percent of its 11th graders were proficient in math on the state's High School Proficiency Exam.

After the state sent monitors to oversee testing last spring, 75 percent scored proficient, a drop of 17 percentage points.

Robinson allegedly failed to follow test security protocols and "participated in or facilitated the tampering," according to the report.

No one else was implicated in the report, which will be turned over to the appropriate authorities, officials said. The report has been requested by state investigators conducting a criminal probe into the test scores and a state grand jury.

In a separate report, the state Department of Education in August said the "sudden" increase in Brimm's 2005 scores and the 2006 decrease "cause serious concern" about the validity of the scores. The investigation was inconclusive on Carruth's allegations about Pagan.

Borden's report found that principals were under tremendous pressure to improve test scores during the 2004-05 school year, largely due to the federal No Child Left Behind law, which sets benchmarks for math and language arts scores.