The Girl Who Conned The Ivy League (Rolling Stone)

[struggle4progress]

How a high school dropout created the ultimate fake ID, scammed her way into Harvard and Columbia, and became the target of a nationwide manhunt
SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY
Posted Jan 12, 2010 2:31 PM

Brooke Henson knew she was in trouble when she logged in to her e-mail account at Columbia University and found a message from the campus-security office. She stared at the computer screen, feeling that familiar anxiety rising. You'll be fine, she reassured herself. Think positive thoughts, just like her therapist had taught her. Surely she would get out of this scrape the same way she'd gotten out of all the other ones: with smooth talk and little lies. OK, big lies.

She dialed campus security. "Hi," she said, her voice controlled. "This is Brooke Henson."

The officer told her that he had gotten a curious call from police detectives in South Carolina who were trying to crack a missing-person case. "There's something I need to ask you," the officer continued. "Are you Brooke Henson?" The young woman who had disappeared from the rural South Carolina town of Travelers Rest seven years earlier? The girl whose grieving family had been searching for her ever since? The Brooke Henson who was presumed murdered?

"Yes," Brooke said into the phone. "That's me" ...

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/31770765/the_girl_who_conned_the_ivy_league

[Drunken Irishman]

1. That Campbell is a dipshit.

And 4 1/2 years in prison sounds ridiculous. Especially when you realize she did this not for financial gain, but because she was barely hanging on in her real life.

I don't condone her actions, but c'mon now.

[depakid]

3. Campbell's a coward and mentally unstable himself

"Of course, Campbell concluded: Esther Reed was a spy.

If Campbell had learned anything from his time in the Coast Guard, it was that threats lurk everywhere. Everything started falling into place: the military boyfriends, the plastic surgery, the wire transfer from Europe, the false passport. Campbell could see now that Esther had been infiltrating military intelligence at its roots, by seducing young cadets at West Point who would become tomorrow's military leaders."

[shawcomm]

5. Yep, Campbell is an idiot at best

looking for his own adulation at the expense of this poor girl at worst. I feel sorry for Esther Reed. She did what she did because it was her way of surviving. Such a shame that her life was led to this.

Concluded she was a spy...

:banghead:

[midnight]

7. I agree...If this women is an adult, and I'm assuming she is, she does not have to tell

her family where she is going. But as a parent, I can understand her parent's hell.... The fact that this girl is wicked smart, and applied it to getting better educated is a moment of grace that should move this right out of the courts, and put her back in school.... Sorry, but our prison planet mentality is so old economy....

[proteus_lives]

12. So theft and fraud are ok?

As long as they use it "to better themselves"?

:eyes:

[midnight]

18. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to bet their our ways to say that legally....

[proteus_lives]

2. Sounds like a nut-case.

I'm glad they caught her before she turned violent.

[depakid]

6. Yep- she sounds really scary- and might hurt you!

Better make sure to pack your gun, so that someone like this college coed doesn't get ya.

[proteus_lives]

8. As always, you're laughable naive.

People often kill to protect their lies. She's already proven herself able to graft, steal and lie, hurting other people isn't that far off.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. I think that's a bit extreme...

She had chances to kill to cover up her lies. She didn't.

This reminds me of that movie Catch Me If You Can. But instead of using it to defraud everything, she used it to just start over.

[proteus_lives]

10. She's still a liar and a thief.

Her reasoning doesn't matter.

By her actions she proved herself dishonest and willing to commit fraud on many levels.

Given the emotional swings she apparently went through, I don't think violence against others or herself is unimaginable.

[Gormy Cuss]

11. That's an amazing leap to reach that conclusion.

-- sure they do, on TV. In real life? Not so much.
Where is the evidence that this woman had violent tendencies?

[proteus_lives]

13. She's a liar and thief and apparently emotionally unstable.

Violence against herself or others is not far-off or unreasonable to that type of person.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Possibility and probability aren't closely linked in those circumstances.

If they were there'd be a lot more violence.

[xocet]

15. Danger! Danger...!

Dear Dr. Frist,

I wondered what you decided to do with your time after leaving the Senate. Who could have imagined that you were here at the DU? It is nice to see that your powers of diagnosis have evolved from requiring a video tape to requiring a simple webpage-based article - that is a short step away from purely faith-based diagnosis! You're so clever.

[depakid]

16. Your posts are an excellent example of American cowardice in action

Of the type that drives the world's largest and most expensive prison system and cowers in such fear of "people acting strangely" that it sends fighter jets up to divert planes- and charges folks for penning barely coherent screeds about Gilligan;s Island.

[proteus_lives]

17. Blah, blah. Same fake-Ozzie talking point we always hear.

Defending a thief and a con-artist because you can never back-up your flawed logic.

Tsk-Tsk. So petty.

[elleng]

4. Sounds like Law and Order!