The Emperor
Paid Agent
17-Year-Old Admits He Lied To NY Mag About Making $72 Million
This morning, New York magazine issued an apology. “We were duped. Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better. New York apologizes to our readers,” the magazine wrote.
So what was the fact checking process?
Mr. Islam and his friend, Damir Tulemaganbetov, who is also featured in the story, described the process in an exclusive interview with the Observer this morning.
“New York magazine wanted a document, and I showed them what they wanted to see,” Mr. Islam told us in a conference room at the 5WPR offices, the PR firm that Mr. Islam hired to do damage control. Mr. Islam said he met Alex Yablon, a fact checker at New York magazine, at the bottom of the Stuyvesant bridge “for maybe 10 seconds or so.” He said he showed the fact checker a single sheet of paper that he had doctored to prove what was in his bank account. Although Mr. Islam declined to name the exact figure, he said it “was nowhere near” the $72 million quoted in the story as his rumored worth.
“Though he is shy about the $72 million number, he confirmed his net worth is in the ‘high eight figures,'” Ms. Pressler wrote (the smallest eight-figure number Mohammed could have “confirmed” would be $10,000,000). “More than enough to rent an apartment in Manhattan—though his parents won’t let him live in it until he turns 18—and acquire a BMW, which he can’t drive because he doesn’t yet have a license.”
Mr. Yablon tried to meet twice with Mr. Islam before catching up with him at the bottom of the overpass that spans the West Side Highway. But according to Mr. Islam, nobody at New York magazine asked for evidence that he had bought an apartment or BMW with his windfall. The high school student does not actually have a place in Manhattan; he lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Elmhurst with his parents and younger sister. Mr. Islam said he sleeps in the living room. The BMW, he said, belongs to his father, who lets him drive it when he is with a licensed driver (he has a learner’s permit).
Read more at http://observer.com/2014/12/how-the-72-million-kid-duped-new-york-magazine/#ixzz3MAaEY6Um
...fukk being somebody employee
you gotta be frickin kidding me
