By Colman Herman
The Massachusetts Appeals Court is investigating a report by CommonWealth magazine that a senior staff attorney working for the court ran a side business writing term papers for students.
“We are concerned about the information contained in the article,” said Chief Justice Phillip Rapoza. “We are investigating the matter, and appropriate action will be taken. The integrity of our courts is of paramount importance and all of those who work in the justice system must be held to the highest standards.”
A Massachusetts law passed in 1972 outlaws the sale of term papers if those involved know or have reason to know that the material will be submitted for academic credit and represented as original work.
Damian Bonazzoli, the senior staff attorney at the appeals court, was one of dozens of people and businesses that responded to an email inquiry sent out by a CommonWealth reporter who posed as a student asking for a 20-page, double-spaced term paper about physician assisted suicide. (Read the whole story here.)
Bonazzoli promised a “quality grade” if he was hired to write the 20-page paper and sent along, unsolicitied, his resume. It indicated he worked at the appeals court, a job that pays him $94,000 a year. He wanted $300 to write the paper on physician-assisted suicide.
In an email exchange about the 20-page assignment, Bonazzolli said turning in a paper that he had written would not be illegal. In a followup telephone interview, Bonazzoli insisted that students should abide by the ethics codes of their schools and added that he was unaware of the Massachusetts law on term papers.
The query by CommonWealth was sent to 66 individuals and companies advertising on the Boston site of Craigslist. Sixty-two responses came back, quoting prices ranging from $90 to $1,200. The average price was $370, or $18.50 a page.
A handful of other businesses were contacted about writing admissions essays or a dissertation literature review. For example, Dr. Rivka Colen, a physician practicing at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, offered to write admissions essays for medical school. Her fee for four essays was $800.
“This is a clear breach of professional ethics,” said Dr. Henry Sondheimer, senior director for student affairs and student programs at the Association of American Medical Colleges. “More and more we are seeing applicants to medical school paying someone else to write their admissions essays,” he said. To combat the problem, Sondheimer said the medical school at Drexel University goes so far as to have applicants write their essays on the spot when they come in for interviews.
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where Colen practices, declined comment, as did the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, which licenses and disciplines physicians.
Meanwhile, David Campbell, provost at Boston University, said he is having BU lawyers look into someone who advertises himself on Craigslist as a BU doctoral candidate who will write term papers for students. This writer-for-hire wanted to charge CommonWealth about $420 to write the 20-page paper on physician-assisted suicide. “I write in my sleep,” he bragged.