In the fall of his second term, he sent applications for judicial clerkships to twenty-three judges. But when a clerk for one of the judges scrutinized Martoma’s transcript, something looked off, and the clerk got in touch with the registrar at Harvard. On February 2, 1999, the registrar confronted Martoma. His transcript had apparently been doctored: two B’s and a B-plus had all been changed to A’s. (A remaining B-plus, an A, and an A-minus were left unchanged.) Martoma initially insisted that “it was all a joke.” But the school referred the matter to Harvard’s Administrative Board, which recommended expulsion.
He fought the decision vociferously, hiring a lawyer and taking two polygraph examinations. There had been a misunderstanding, Martoma explained: he had altered his transcript not for the judges but for his parents. He brought the faked transcript home over winter break, and they were ecstatic. (The panel evaluating his case noted that Martoma was “under extreme parental pressure to excel.”) But, after showing his parents the transcript, Martoma continued, he had to leave town abruptly, so he asked one of his younger brothers to compile the clerkship applications that he had left out in his bedroom. Unwittingly, the brother picked up a copy of the forged transcript, and included it in the mailing for the judges. Martoma had discovered the mistake before being confronted by the registrar, he insisted, and had sent e-mails to the secretaries of two professors from whom he had sought recommendations, asking them not to send the letters, “as I am no longer looking for a clerkship.
This sounds like the stories that distant relations who have drug problems make up, right down to a crazy amount of detail on things that aren't really important.
He fought the decision vociferously, hiring a lawyer and taking two polygraph examinations. There had been a misunderstanding, Martoma explained: he had altered his transcript not for the judges but for his parents. He brought the faked transcript home over winter break, and they were ecstatic. (The panel evaluating his case noted that Martoma was “under extreme parental pressure to excel.”) But, after showing his parents the transcript, Martoma continued, he had to leave town abruptly, so he asked one of his younger brothers to compile the clerkship applications that he had left out in his bedroom. Unwittingly, the brother picked up a copy of the forged transcript, and included it in the mailing for the judges. Martoma had discovered the mistake before being confronted by the registrar, he insisted, and had sent e-mails to the secretaries of two professors from whom he had sought recommendations, asking them not to send the letters, “as I am no longer looking for a clerkship.
This sounds like the stories that distant relations who have drug problems make up, right down to a crazy amount of detail on things that aren't really important.