A single post on Reddit exposed a student at an elite university as a fraud who lied to get into school and had major legal consequences.
Aryan Anand, 19, a former student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was exposed as a complete fraud after a Reddit post revealed his web of lies.
Earlier this month, Anand pleaded guilty to forgery in Northampton County following revelations that his entire college application was fabricated.
The international student was caught after investigators found a post written by an anonymous user they believed to be Anand on the Reddit forum titled: “I’ve built my life and career on lies.”
The post recounted how he created fraudulent admissions applications and financial aid documentation to get into Lehigh, which has a 37 percent acceptance rate and tuition of nearly $60,000 per year.
A single post on Reddit exposed a student at an elite university as a fraud who lied to get into the school and could have cost him up to 20 years in prison.
Aryan Anand, 19, a former student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was exposed as a complete fraud after a Reddit post revealed his web of lies.
A Reddit moderator notified the school, and university police conducted an investigation.
The post reportedly did not mention the name of the school, but the moderator allegedly guessed correctly after seeing that Anand followed Lehigh on the website.
‘The defendant only had one other college that he attended, which was Lehigh University. So the moderator reached out to Lehigh to let them know,” Northampton County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Weinert said. ABC 6.
Investigators discovered that Anand had, in fact, posed as a school principal and created falsified documents, including fake school transcripts, tax returns and a death certificate for his father, who is in fact alive and well and lives in India.
‘It was difficult to really verify these things. I think it was a great job by Lehigh and his police force. “They were able to dig really deep and found out that this was all really false,” Weinert added.
Anand was arrested in April and charged with multiple crimes, including forgery, tampering with records, theft by deception and theft of services.
The post recounts how he created a fake admissions application and financial aid documentation to get into Lehigh, which has a 37 percent acceptance rate and tuition of nearly $60,000 a year.
On June 12, he pleaded guilty to one count of forgery, classified as a second-degree felony.
Anand initially faced between 10 and 20 years in prison, however, at the university’s request, his sentence was reduced to expulsion from the school and deportation to India.
As part of the agreement for his return to India, the university waived its request for restitution, estimated at approximately $85,000.
Anand was later handed over to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Lehigh University responded in a statement saying it “appreciates the report to its ethics hotline and the diligent investigation by the Lehigh University Police Department that led to the arrest of Aryan Anand.”