New York: In an anonymous Reddit post, a 19-year-old Indian student admitted to forging admission documents to get a seat at a US university, which ultimately resulted in his deportation under a plea deal with American authorities.
In the now-deleted post, the student confessed, “I have built my life and career on lies and fraud,” revealing that he used forged documents, including a fake marksheet and a falsified death certificate for his father, to secure a spot at Lehigh University, a private research institution in Pennsylvania, for the 2023–2024 academic year.
He expressed moral uncertainty, stating, “I don’t know if what I am doing is right or wrong. It is basically wrong morally, I know, but I haven’t had a single problem till now. I am scared something bad will happen soon if I keep doing these things.” His fears turned out to be a reality when a Reddit monitor alerted Lehigh’s Admissions Department on April 26, leading to an investigation.
“The criminal complaint revealed the thread was authored by someone with the username ‘u/transportationOK4728,’ and ‘the creator was following only one university group on Reddit, and that university was Lehigh University’,” the report said.
Further investigation by the Lehigh police identified Anand as the author of the post.
Anand had indicated that he “created a fake email address in the format of principal@schoolname.com for his application, submitted a death certificate for his father to acquire additional hardship financial aid, falsified tax documentation, altered his secondary school year 1-3 transcripts, and created a false “Senior School Certificate Examination” to show success in his final year of secondary, the report said.
Anand said it was “all for the purpose of securing admission and financial aid to attend a university in the United States.”
The criminal complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on April 30 accused Anand of violating the statutes of forgery, tampering with records or identification, theft by deception, and theft of services.
“Metadata revealed the death certificate and tax documents were altered using the “iLovePDF” website, and the academic documents were modified using Adobe Photoshop,” according to the criminal complaint.
Anand was arrested and charged with a second-degree felony for forgery and tampering with records or identification, a third-degree felony for theft by deception, and a third-degree felony for theft of services, the report said.
Anand was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Jordan Knisley on June 12, with a bail of USD 25,000. He pleaded guilty to one count of forgery.
As part of the plea deal, he was sentenced to one to three months in Northampton County Prison, “which amounted to a time-served sentence,” lehighvalleylive.com quoted defense attorney Molly Heidorn as saying.
As part of the deal, Anand is required to return to India, and Lehigh chose not to seek restitution of about USD 85,000. He was released into the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
(with inputs of PTI)
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