FALSIFYING CREDENTIALS: An Analysis

FALSIFYING CREDENTIALS: An Analysis

A member of the New York State Bar was convicted last week in New York State Supreme Court, in Manhattan, on a number of charges including Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument and Offering a False Instrument for Filing. Soma Sengupta, 52, an attorney admitted to practice law in New York State was charged with falsifying documents containing information on her educational and professional qualifications in order to obtain employment and professional accreditation, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. For 10 years, this defendant piled lie upon lie until the tower of deception she built finally fell in upon itself, DA Vance said in a statement following the verdict. What we do know to be accurate about Ms. Sengupta is that she graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1998 and was admitted to practice law in New York State in 2000. The New York State Unified Court System website confirms that information as of February 18, 2013. Ms. Sengupta applied for a paralegal position in 2000 at the Manhattan DA in spite of the fact that the office does not permit attorneys to work as paralegals. According to published media, Ms. Sengupta claimed that she had left law school prior to graduating and provided her year of birth as 1969, even though she was actually born in 1961 putting her at 39 years old at the time she applied. Inasmuch as she had claimed to have some law school credits, when in fact she had graduated from law school and was a member of the New York State Bar, this went undetected by her new employer. As a paralegal, Ms. Sengupta began to handle some of the more complicated cases. It was not until 2003, a period of three years, that the Manhattan DA discovered that she was in fact a lawyer, and Ms. Sengupta was promptly dismissed. According to court testimony at her recent trial, Ms. Sengupta began volunteer work at the Legal Aid Society s Prisoners Rights Project from the time of her dismissal in 2003 until 2007. According to trial testimony, Ms. Sengupta did not make court appearances or compile briefs while at Legal Aid. Given this scenario, Ms. Sengupta, using forged materials, applied for admission to One Inner Temple Lane, a prominent criminal and regulatory law chamber or firm, in the United Kingdom to obtain a pupillage, a year of paid on-the-job training for individuals seeking to become attorneys in the UK. In connection with her application to the firm, Ms. Sengupta was found to have falsely represented to One Inner Temple Lane and the Bar Standards Board in London, which regulates barristers called to the Bar in England and Wales, which she had served as an Assistant District Attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney s Office. Ms. Sengupta was awarded the position or pupilage, to train with One Inner Temple Lane and was due to begin in October 2007, but according to published media, failed entrance tests several times. Ms. Sengupta successfully concealed the failures from the firm and instead successfully appealed to the Bar Standards Board, who, given her experience and background, waived the part of the exam she had failed and gained admittance to the program. The indictment charging Ms. Sengupta reveals that she presented the firm with a forged birth certificate, forged college and law school diplomas and forged references. According to the Manhattan DA, Ms. Sengupta obtained a counterfeit Georgetown seal from a Web-based business, rubberstamp.com, and created a diploma which would mirror the misstatements on her application, including one that she was awarded her undergraduate degree from Georgetown, which was inaccurate. Ms. Sengupta forged a copy of her Indian birth certificate and also created a web site for a fictitious law firm in the name of a non-existent former prosecutor, submitting a reference letter in his name. Ms. Gupta also filed a reference letter from Robert F. Drinan, a Jesuit priest, Georgetown law professor, former Dean of Boston College Law School and a former U. S. congressional representative from Massachusetts. The letter, according to published media, was dated a year after Father Drinan s death.

Additional letters of reference, alleged to have been written by her supervisors at the Manhattan DA and Legal Aid, revealed that Ms. Sengupta was an accomplished trial lawyer. Trial testimony revealed that the letters had also been forged. I have over six years of advocacy experience in a common law system and I am in court on an almost daily basis, Ms. Sengupta wrote in her application to the Bar Standards Board. In the first six months at the firm, Ms. Sengupta began handling assignments on her own and was assigned approximately 80 criminal cases over three months, where she represented defendants accused of minor crimes. Given this carefully orchestrated web of deception, well, actually not too carefully as it turns out, and all of the false documentation provided by Ms. Sengupta, it was not her work for the British law firm that allowed this scheme to unravel, but her age. Following her acceptance into the law firm, One Inner Temple Lane, a clerk who had been reviewing her paperwork discovered that she had used several dates of birth on different forms. In the absence of an explanation as to why she had four different dates of birth, she was done, said Edmund Blackman, a barrister with One Inner Temple Lane, who testified during the trial. Mr. Blackman added: We had suffered a financial loss, but more importantly, she had been appearing in court when unqualified to do so. In fact, Ms. Sengupta, in one of the documents claimed to be 29 years old when she was in her late 40s. Mr. Black s firm suspended her pupilage and revealed to the Bar Standards Board, what they had learned. As a result of their inquiry into this matter, the Bar Standards Board of England and Wales changed the standard for the application process which called for a certain level of honor among those who apply. The fraud was found to be so vast and complete that the board now requires that college transcripts from applicants be obtained directly from the schools in a sealed envelope, without any involvement on the part of the applicant. Commenting on whether One Inner Temple Lane verified pupillage applicants prior employment claims, Mr. Blackman was quoted as saying: Stupidly, we did not. We do now. It remains to be seen what the aftermath in the UK will be with respect to the 80 or so cases Ms. Sengupta handled, given her representation of the defendants without appropriate qualifications. Should This Happen to You What can we learn from this amazing chronicle of deception? Ms. Sengupta worked for a total of three years at the Manhattan DA s Office claiming only to have had some law school credits when she had in fact graduated and had been admitted to the New York State Bar. She then went on to acceptance into a pupilage program in the hope of becoming a barrister in the UK. Whether it is a financial or educational or religious institution, an insurance company, a non-profit or government entity, or a publicly traded company, whenever a person is being considered for a position of trust and/or responsibility he or she should undergo a thorough and comprehensive background check. Experienced and highly trained professionals earn a living on a daily basis performing research on people and organizations. MSA Investigations specialists often encounter many scenarios of a similar nature when performing background research for clients. Nothing stated on a job application or provided in the form of official documentation, including diplomas, should be overlooked and each and every item should be carefully scrutinized. As we saw in this instance, it is possible to gain access to a counterfeit seal to falsify an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University.

Clients who often are making critical business decisions entrust us with providing enough information so they can make the most informed decision possible. MSA Investigations professionals examine and thoroughly evaluate all aspects of a person or an entity when engaged to do so. In this climate of doing more with less, saving money or cutting back on expenditures, making an important business decision on a potential employment or whether or not to partner with a firm, are not scenarios where cheaper or less expensive is necessarily the most cost effective method. In fact, doing so can wind up costing you a whole lot more in the long run.

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