Math Professor in Baltimore Pleads Guilty to Selling Grades
“served on the faculty senate’s ethics committee”
He actually had a sliding scale for pricing, depending on which grade you wanted. Unreal.
The College Fix reports:
$500 for an A? Baltimore professor sentenced in bribery scheme
A math professor who taught at Baltimore City Community College and served on the faculty senate’s ethics committee has pleaded guilty to selling grades and cheat codes to hundreds of students, over an eight-year period.
He will serve one year in jail, of a 10-year sentence, and pay a $60,000 fine, the New York Times reported.
Professor Edward Ennels taught at the community college over a 15-year period. From 2013 to 2020, prosecutors charged that he sold 694 online “access codes” to students at approximately $90 a pop, for a haul of over $62,000.
These codes “enabled students to view instructional material and complete assignments” without putting in the work to acquire the knowledge.
In 2020, Ennels tried something new:
Over the course of seven months last year, Mr. Ennels, 45, solicited bribes from 112 students, and received 10 payments from nine students, totaling $2,815, the Maryland attorney general, Brian E. Frosh, said in a statement on Thursday.
The pricing scheme for grades on a sliding scale from C to B to A was $150 to $250 to $500. Ennels solicited these bribes using what the Maryland attorney general characterized as an “elaborate scheme.” Here’s how it worked:
In March 2020, Mr. Ennels sent an email using one of his aliases, “Bertie Benson,” to another of his aliases, “Amanda Wilbert,” prosecutors said in a statement. In the email, “Benson” offered to complete “Wilbert’s” math assignments, guaranteeing her an A for $300, prosecutors said.
Then, as “Wilbert,” Mr. Ennels forwarded that email to 112 students enrolled in a class that he was teaching…
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Comments
Well, at least they were doing something to get their grades….
Apparently the conviction was for bribery. (Solicitation of bribery?) But what about the students who paid him? Did they get charged for bribery?
DUMB. He should be charged with felony stupidity as well as bribery.
A much more successful (and legal) scam that is common among premeds is that they go to a psychologist who makes his money by diagnosing them “learning disabled,” and then they get time and a half or double time on all their college exams. And the instructor isn’t legally permitted to say on their recommendations that they got double time.
The only way I could figure out to get around this scam was to give exams at night and have no time limits. Some of these “learning disabled” students were furious when they found out that they weren’t going to get an advantage over the other students. Anyone who was actually “learning disabled” was relieved to have no time limits.
“Even so, “Most students declined to pay the bribes,” the New York Times reported.”
I wish this purported fact had been reported by a trustworthy source — then I would enjoy feeling better about the upcoming generation.
The fact that he was on the ethics committee suggests this guy had tenure or at least was a full-time assistant professor, in which case he probably made pretty good $.
I could sort of understand an underpaid part-timer pulling off such a scam to supplement his meager wages, but even then it takes some balls.