Op-Ed
Faking His Way to The Top: A cautionary tale
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If you haven’t heard, Yale is abuzz with the most outlandish scandal in the Ivy League. Last Tuesday, The Yale Daily News reported that 26-year-old Akash Maharaj was arrested in September on charges of larceny and forgery for allegedly faking his application to Yale and stealing some $46,000 in financial aid. As the story continues to unfold, however, we are learning that there are even more ridiculous pieces of the puzzle. A blogger at IvyGate summarized the situation best, exclaiming “The story has so many twisting elements, it reads like a daytime soap: Gay lovers’ spat! Race-related unrest! Forgery, identity theft, mental instability! The defendant may have duped NYU, Columbia, and Yale with falsified transcripts and tales of charitable works in Sri Lanka (probably fake) and a childhood in Trinidad and Tobago (probably real).” This stuff is way better than any stupid Greek war on Juicy Campus.
The fraud is obviously the backbone of this story. The fact that an esteemed and impenetrable institution like Yale (or Columbia or NYU …) could be punk’d by some psychopath New Yorker from Trinidad and Tobago is awesome. In line with The Riches, Stealing Harvard, and Catch Me If You Can, it won’t matter what punishment this kid gets — although it might be up to 25 years — because he is definitely going to get a book (or movie or sitcom) deal out of this.
This isn’t even the first time this has happened at Yale, but none of the other instances are nearly as ridiculous, consisting only of the average college application embellishments. The only occasion that can even compare was in 1992 at Princeton when a 32-year-old man, James Hogue, got caught posing as a 20-year-old and was sentenced to jail for nine months (but the charges were uninterestingly dropped in a plea bargain).
Victor Cazares, Maharaj’s boyfriend, is responsible for reporting the faker to the police after discovering discrepancies with Maharaj’s age and other aspects of his identity. IvyGate does an amazing job of giving a full picture of their relationship, posting Facebook pictures, wall-to-walls, notes, and general theories submitted from gossipy Yalies. This is the scenario that I have gathered from everything I’ve seen: Akash, the charming and exotic conman, immigrates to America, goes to NYU without paying, transfers to Columbia, takes a year off to get psychological treatment, fakes his way into Yale, then falls madly in love with Victor. Captivated by (and leery of) Akash’s charm, Victor becomes slightly obsessed with Akash, writing on his wall multiple times within the same minute, and allowing Akash to use him for money and favors. Both of them were in the infamous Skull and Bones, which apparently became a point of drama between the two.
As the drama escalated, Victor dumped Maharaj. Although Victor was the leachy one at the beginning of the relationship, Maharaj didn’t take the news very well — apparently Akash is cuter and Victor is a pretentious asshole — and threatened to commit suicide. Victor took him to the hospital, and reported his fraudulent ex to the police after Akash continuously threatened him. Akash was kicked out of Yale in June, and arrested in September. Yale tried to keep it quiet, but the truth — as it tends to do — leaked out.
So let me get this straight. Some lying immigrant madman can go to Yale and be in Skull and Bones, but I, an honest, hardworking American can’t even get tapped by Quill and Dagger? Yale really needs to work on its screening process. Please, Yale, start checking birthdays, transcripts and recommendations. I thought that the good schools were supposed to be highly investigative with applicants — especially gay immigrant ones. Did the year off for psychiatric care even garner a second thought? With all of these questions yet to be sufficiently answered, I will be waiting eagerly for the next segment in this developing farce.
This story brings up two points. The first is that I really should have gone to Yale. There are gays at Cornell, but none of them are evil masterminds or in Skull and Bones. After I get into Yale Law, my plan is to spend the entire summer working on my fitness so that I can snatch up the sexiest psycho conman on campus. I know I missed the boat with Akash — although there is an alumni network — but hopefully there are few more fake Yalies that I can sink my teeth into. Secondly, I think that Akash’s story is inspiring in many ways. This is not a sad story about lies and deception — it is the tale of a suppressed minority (a homosexual, immigrant, and psychopath all at once) who achieved the American dream by faking his way to the top. Right?
John-David Brown is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at jdbrown@cornellsun.com. Country Club Cockfight usually appears alternate Thursdays.