Man loses scholarship due to girlfriend's deception

dvorak613

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 12:24 pm

http://montrealgazette.com/new.....areer

What a crazy story! I'm just floored at the girlfriend's behavior. I hope they find her and make her pay up.

Woman of Valor

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 12:30 pm

My filter doesn't let me see it...can you post a short synopsis?

Fox

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 12:43 pm

The young man was a promising musician who was offered one of two positions as a personal student, all expenses paid, of the world's premier clarinet teacher. A year of instruction under this teacher almost assures the student of a position in a major orchestra.

The student's girlfriend had access to his email and saw the acceptance. Because she didn't want her boyfriend to move away, she replied to the email, declining the offer. She then made a fake Gmail account and sent a rejection email to her boyfriend.

He ended up enrolling in another program and later learned of the deception. He sued her and was awarded $350K (C).

Hard to imagine someone doing something so selfish and evil.

dvorak613

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 12:47 pm

A star clarinet player was offered a scholarship to a top notch music program that would have had him study under one of the best clarinetists in the world. His girlfriend saw the email with the offer and replied back (using his email) declining the scholarship. She also made a fake email address and sent the boyfriend a rejection letter. Here's a copy paste:

Quote:

McGill music student awarded $350,000 after girlfriend stalls career
She wrote an email posing as him, turning down a $50,000-a-year scholarship so that he wouldn't leave

McGill University music student Eric Abramovitz was among the top clarinetists in Canada. He studied with some of the country’s elite teachers from the age of seven. He won first prize at the Canadian Music Competition six times. He was a featured soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Québec.

In late 2013, Abramovitz applied for a full two-year scholarship to complete his bachelor’s degree at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. Every student at Colburn receives a full scholarship, including tuition, room and board as well as money for meals and other expenses, worth roughly $50,000 a year.

If accepted, he would study under Yehuda Gilad, considered one of the best clarinet teachers on the planet. Gilad accepts two students a year out of dozens of applicants. To be chosen is virtually a guarantee of a high-paying symphony career directly out of college. After an exhaustive pre-screening process, Abramovitz flew to Los Angeles in February 2014 with his parents to do a live audition before Gilad and a committee of faculty members.

A month later, Colburn sent an email to Abramovitz. He had been chosen.

Except Abramovitz never got the email. Jennifer Lee, a fellow McGill music student and Abramovitz’s girlfriend at the time, did. They had started dating in September 2013, and within a month he was staying at her apartment almost full time. He trusted her. He let her use his laptop. He gave her his passwords.

Scared he would move away and perhaps no longer be in a relationship with her, Lee deleted the email. She sent the Colburn Conservatory of Music an email, pretending to be Abramovitz, refusing the offer because he would “be elsewhere.”

She sent Abramovitz an email pretending to be Yehuda Gilad, under a new address she apparently established herself, giladyehuda09@gmail.com, saying Abramovitz had not been accepted for a scholarship at Colburn. Writing as Gilad, she told Abramovitz he was offered a position to study at the University of Southern California with a scholarship of $5,000 a year. Annual tuition at USC is $51,000, a cost she knew Abramovitz could not afford.

Abramovitz was completely taken in. He lost his two-year scholarship opportunity to study with Gilad. He completed his studies at McGill, and then did a two-year certificate program at USC, not on scholarship, where he got to study part-time under Gilad.

In an interview with the National Post, Abramovitz explained how he discovered the ruse months later, long after his relationship with Lee ended in September 2014 for unrelated reasons.

It was at his second audition before Gilad, in which they had a brief and strange interaction, when Gilad said, “Why did you reject me?”

It was a fair question. As Abramovitz put it, “You don’t reject him.” But having done nothing of the sort, Abramovitz asked in return, “Why did you reject me?”

They could not sort it out then and there, but over time, the wonder lingered. Another student of Gilad’s asked him about it. Eventually, Abramovitz forwarded the fake email to Gilad, who replied: “I’ve never seen that in my life.”

“That’s when I knew that something underhanded was afoot,” Abramovitz said. One day in 2015, he and a friend set about trying to gain access to the fake email account, and because Abramovitz and Lee once shared a computer, he knew one of her passwords, which he tried.

“Miraculously, it logged right in,” he said. Her email was listed as the recovery email, her phone was the recovery phone. “We felt like Sherlock Holmes.”

Abramovitz also said she did a similar thing involving fake emails with his successful application to the Juilliard School in New York, causing him to decline it.

After Abramovitz learned of the deception, he sued for $300,000 in general damages, including for loss of reputation, loss of educational opportunity and loss of two years of income potential.

On Wednesday, Ontario Superior Court judge David L. Corbett ruled in his favour, and added $50,000 “against Ms. Lee for her despicable interference in Mr. Abramovitz’s career.”

The case was heard in Ontario because Lee is a resident there.

“I accept and find that Mr. Abramovitz lost a unique and prestigious educational opportunity, one that would have advanced his career as a professional clarinetist,” Corbett wrote. “It is difficult to quantify such a loss. Mr Abramovitz’s life and career have continued. Imagining how his life would have been different if he had studied for two years under Mr. Gilad, and earned his teacher’s respect and support, requires more speculation than the law permits. One hears … of the ‘big breaks’ that can launch a promising artist to a stratospheric career.

“I cannot speculate as to how high and how quickly Mr. Abramovitz’s career might have soared, but for the interference by Ms. Lee. But the law does recognize that the loss of a chance is a very real and compensable loss.”

The judge found that the lost two years in scholarship was worth $50,000 a year. The cost of the two years Abramovitz studied under the certificate program at USC was estimated at $50,000 for tuition and another $30,000 in living expenses. Based on testimony from Gilad, who noted that Abramovitz won numerous competitions in his first five months in Los Angeles and secured a position in the Santa Barbara Orchestra, Corbett agreed he had lost out on two years of potential salary because of his girlfriend’s deceit, worth $71,500 U.S. a year.

“I am very frustrated that a highly talented musician like Eric was the victim of such an unthinkable, immoral act that delayed his progress and advancement as an up-and-coming young musician and delayed his embarking on a most promising career,” Gilad wrote.

Corbett agreed to Abramovitz’s claim for damages of $300,000 Canadian. To that he added $25,000 in aggravated damages, representing “the incompensable personal loss suffered by Mr. Abramovitz by having a closely held personal dream snatched from him by a person he trusted.

“The general damages reflect financial losses; the aggravated damages are modest recognition of the anguish and hurt that has cost Mr. Abramovitz no money, but which has nonetheless hurt him.” Another $25,000 was charged to cover court costs and legal fees.

He said he is not certain he will be able to collect his damages, as he does not know where she is and she has blocked him on social media.

Abramovitz earned a position with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Last March, it was announced he was appointed associate principal clarinet of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

His former girlfriend never responded to the statement of claim against her, never filed a notice of intent to defend or a statement of defence, and thus was noted in default. Lee could not be reached for comment.

“A defendant who has been noted in default is deemed to admit the truth of all allegations made in the statement of claim,” the judgment explained.

“This award expresses the court’s revulsion at what Ms. Lee has done,” Judge Corbett wrote in his summation.

octopus

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 12:51 pm

Nachas from dating non Jewish girlfriend

Dandelion1

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 2:39 pm

octopus wrote:

Nachas from dating non Jewish girlfriend

Omg I thought that too and then felt guilty!

Maya

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 2:50 pm

octopus wrote:

Nachas from dating non Jewish girlfriend

Wow.

Willy mommy

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 2:56 pm

Just a very sad story

Dandelion1

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 3:23 pm

Maya wrote:

Wow.

Come on, can we just not be politically correct for like, 2 seconds? Nobody thinks he deserved this g-d forbid, my heart breaks for this poor kid. Nor do we think non-jews are inferior in any way as human beings. It's just a knee jerk reaction stemming from an innate sadness when one contemplates a Jew marrying outside of the religion, in the sense that their children will not continue on as Jews. Not everything is racism.

Maya

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 3:39 pm

aleph wrote:

I’m in no way a politically correct person. It’s just mind blowing to me that someone’s first takeaway from this story would be something so ...irrelevant and egocentric.
You’re denying that we think that Jews are inferior, but I think such a reaction is evidence of the indoctrination of exactly that. I mean, nowhere in this article is marriage even mentioned, yet that’s where you immediately went. And to call it nachas shock

Dandelion1

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 3:55 pm

Maya wrote:

Yeah, the word nachas was kind of random. I read the story, and I had a whole bunch of takeaways, mainly that this is one of the most blatantly selfish/evil thing I've ever heard (not including murder and genocide and the like). I feel so incredibly bad for this kid, and I would feel exactly the same way if he was the non jew and she was the jew and the roles were reversed.

But as the names stuck out as a Jewish guy dating a non Jewish girl, my inner bubby kicked in and for a moment I thought "takeh, he couldn't settle for a nice Jewish maideleh?"

Nothing to do with superior/inferior. That's just pc gone wild.

dvorak613

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 4:09 pm

Seriously, so not the takeaway here. And as Orthodox Jews we believe in matrilineal descent, which means last names are a rather poor indicator of halachik Jewishness.

Anyway, I really feel for this guy. He seems to have managed to get on his desired career path, but lost two years and and a once in a lifetime opportunity that he can never get back. Of course it isn't on the level of murder, but this young woman's selfishness and cruelty really is mind boggling.

OutATowner

Fri, Jun 15 2018, 4:19 pm

It's terrible. I also feel badly that his trust in others is probably very shaky, which is a horrible way to live. But.....at least it's 2 years, and not 20 that thos was found out. Still time to do something about it, and I'm sure this publicity will help him repair some of the damage. It's a miracle he found out about this.

seeker

Sat, Jun 16 2018, 7:45 pm

She got off cheap, IMO. It seems like he could have had professional opportunities from this much more valuable than 350k.

Raisin

Sun, Jun 17 2018, 4:20 am

I doubt he will get the money from her.

What an awful thing to do. I would be more sympathetic if it was spur of the moment thing like tossing a letter into the bin, but she went to a lot of trouble to deceive him.

Luckily his career doesn't seem to be too adversely affected.

It could be worse, he could have married or had kids with her.