11 Nov
2007

















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     Imposters

Today's newspapers feature two accounts of resume fraud (aka identity crime): people profiting from invented qualifications.

In the UK The Times reports on prosecution of Gene Morrison, characterised as a 'bogus scientist who bought PhD on internet' - useful in serving as an expert witness in UK civil and criminal litigation.

Morrison faces 23 counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception, obtaining property by deception, perverting the course of justice and perjury. He is reported as denying 21 of those counts.

The Times reports that Morrison paid US$1,398 for a BSc and PhD from 'Rochville University', a US degree mill. In advertisements in the Solicitors Journal he claimed that he had been offering a first-class "objective and professional" service to lawyers and insurers since 1977. The Crown disagreed, stating that

The services offered by the defendant were used by solicitors dealing with criminal, civil and family proceedings and also by insurance companies and private individuals. It is the prosecution case that the defendant frequently misrepresented his qualifications and his ability to deliver the services offered by his company, the Criminal & Forensic Investigations Bureau.

Morrison allegedly lacked expertise, relied on in court as an expert witness, regarding imaging. It is alleged that he fraudulently claimed academic qualifications in television imaging analysis from Salford College of Technology and attendance at Home Office seminars.

The Crown questioned Morrison's qualifications, commenting that

Rochville University has no physical existence. There are no buildings and there is no teaching. All you need is access to the internet, a little imagination and, of course, enough money to pay for your chosen degrees.

The case is reminiscent of incidents in Australia and New Zealand where people falsely claimed medical qualifications from real universities or from degree mills.

Australian expert George Brown, author of the leading study on diploma fraud, has kindly pointed out a less frightening incident in South Korea.

There Ahn Yoo-jin (also known as Xena Ahn) has been prosecuted for forging an undergraduate degree to get a teaching job at a provincial university.

She became a celebrity by hosting several televised belly dance lectures and has been tagged 'Korea's First Belly Dancer'. Ms Ahn established the Belly Korea Academy in 1995 and is head of the Korea Belly Dance Association.

She was indicted for allegedly forging a graduation certificate of an unnamed Sydney university to get a job as a part-time lecturer at Kwangju Women's University in 2006.

South Korea is undergoing a spate of such exposures. Earlier this year high profile curator Shin Jeong-ah, youngest professor at Seoul's prestigious Dongguk University, was revealed to have improperly claimed a doctorate from Yale and a master's degree from Kansas University. Prominent Buddhist monk the Venerable Jigwang was revealed to have falsely claimed a Seoul National University degree. Kim Ock-rang resigned from her professorship at Dankook University after admitting she had purchased her degree from a Californian diploma mill in California. Radio presenter Lee Ji-young was fired by Korea Broadcasting System after discovery of fictitious degrees.

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