One of my favorite pop-culture bloggers, fellow Chicago Law graduate Adam Bonin, spots a line in today’s New York Times Vows column—

As their dating progressed, Ms. Wu researched Mr. Nobay online and learned that in 1998 he sued Princeton, unsuccessfully, for defamation after the university notified medical schools he had applied to that his applications contained misrepresentations and altered his academic record. (In court, he admitted misstatements but says he still believes some of what Princeton presented was inaccurate.)

—that obviously merited further investigation. Sure enough, AP reported in 1998:

The graduate, Rommel Nobay, had admitted he told numerous lies and half-truths in applying to Princeton and later to medical school. He claimed that he was part black and a National Merit Scholar and that a family of lepers had donated half their beggings to support his dream. … Nobay, 30, a computer science teacher from New Haven, admitted that he was not, in fact, a Merit Scholar and that a family of lepers had not helped send him to school. He also acknowledged that he doesn’t know whether he has any black blood.

Bonin notes an early 1990s suit by Princeton student Bruce L. Miller, who received $5.7 million after getting himself drunk and losing three limbs in a climb-a-train-plus-touch-high-voltage-wires-electrocution accident. (Regular Overlawyered readers know that this sort of suit doesn’t require a Princeton education.) But Bonin forgets to mention the drink-and-fall-off-the-Princeton-bell-tower lawsuit.

Filed under: electrocution, libel slander and defamation, personal responsibility