http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/nyregion/falling-far-short-of-the-whole-truth.html?pagewanted=all

[i]A New York lawyer who lied about her work experience and shaved nearly 20 years off her age in an effort to gain admittance to the British bar was convicted of all counts she faced by a judge in Manhattan on Friday.

The lawyer, Soma Sengupta, graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1998 and passed the bar exam in New York State in 2000. She worked as a paralegal for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and as a volunteer for the Legal Aid Society.

Ms. Sengupta never appeared in court or wrote court briefs in either job. But when she applied for admission to the British bar, she claimed to have been an accomplished trial lawyer in both posts, which allowed her to avoid one year of classwork. She also forged reference letters, transcripts from Georgetown that inflated her academic achievements and a birth certificate.

Ms. Sengupta won a competitive training slot at a British chamber, which is similar to a law firm here. Her scheme began to unravel after a clerk in the firm doubted a claim on her application that she was 29. She was actually then in her late 40s.

When the British firm began checking her New York references, Ms. Sengupta asked her former employers in New York not to give out any information because she feared she had been the victim of identity theft.

“It’s pretty scary, especially in this time of terrorism,” she wrote in a 2009 e-mail to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

The deception led to charges in Manhattan, where Justice Thomas Farber of State Supreme Court decided the case without a jury at Ms. Sengupta’s request.

“One could not help but be struck by the sheer magnitude and the intensity and breadth of the defendant’s lies and schemes and deceitful behavior,” Justice Farber said.

Ms. Sengupta, 52, who now lives in New Jersey, was convicted of eight felony forgery and false instrument counts and one misdemeanor conspiracy charge. The most serious count carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years. Justice Farber scheduled her sentencing for March 22.

“For 10 years, this defendant piled lie upon lie until the tower of deception she built finally fell in upon itself,” Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement after the verdict.

During the trial, Ms. Sengupta’s lawyer, James Kousouros, acknowledged that his client had forged documents, but he challenged the case on technical legal issues. He said Ms. Sengupta would appeal the verdict.