After Harvard grifter Adam Wheeler plead not guilty in court yesterday, The Today Show went to the school's Cambridge campus to gauge student reaction.
As Mike Taibbi reports, some former classmates "suspected he was a phony right from the start." One student he interviewed said Wheeler "didn't engage" with others or attend any orientation events.
According to the Harvard Crimson, Wheeler was regarded as quiet and had a keen interest in English, evidenced by this self-description that he offered in an e-mail to other transfer students in 2007:
My own, brief, assessment of my character is that I am sententious, crypto-tendentious, slightly pedantic with a streak of contrarianism, a fascination with any pedagogical approach to Shakespeare, and a decent sense of humor.
Wheeler also remarked on his made-up time at MIT:
“[At MIT], I was, to put it poorly, suckled upon the teat of disdain. That being said (fortified by a reflexive snort), I was inspired therby [sic] to apply to Harvard, where the humanities, in short, are not, simpliciter, a source of opprobrium,” [he] wrote.
Neither Wheeler nor his family have spoken publicly. Wheeler, after not making bail, is being held in prison.
Meanwhile, the amount of people who "like" the Facebook page "Free Adam Wheeler" has risen from six to 79.