Wheeler Hearing Set for Nov. 8

During a pre-trial conference held at the Middlesex Superior Court yesterday, Adam B. Wheeler, the former Harvard student who pled not guilty to charges of fabricating his academic history, learned that his next hearing date has been set for Nov. 8.

Wheeler, who did not attend his first pre-trial conference in June, was present at the court in Woburn today, according to Middlesex District Attorney Spokeswoman Cara O’Brien.

On May 18, Wheeler pled not guilty to 20 counts of larceny, identity fraud, falsifying an endorsement or approval, and pretending to hold a degree. Prosecutors allege that Wheeler submitted plagiarized letters of recommendations, fake transcripts, and fraudulent SAT scores in his transfer application to Harvard in 2007.

In the fall of 2009, he was apprehended by Harvard disciplinary officials and later by police when he allegedly submitted fraudulent documents in his applications for the Rhodes and Fulbright Scholarships.

Wheeler, who transferred to Harvard in 2007 as a sophomore, was a resident of Kirkland House and won a Hoopes prize in his junior year for a paper that was later found to be plagiarized.

In his application for transfer admission to Harvard, Wheeler claimed to have earned perfect grades as a high school student at prestigious preparatory school Phillips Academy in Andover and as a first-year student at MIT. In fact, he had attended public high school in Delaware and was a sophomore at Bowdoin facing suspension for academic dishonesty.

After leaving Harvard in the fall of his senior year rather than facing a disciplinary hearing about his academic dishonesty, Wheeler applied for transfer admission to Yale, Brown, Stanford, and the Seaport Maritime Studies Program of Williams College. He was accepted by Williams and Stanford before the universities learned of the criminal charges against him.

Wheeler, a native of Delaware, is not permitted to leave Massachusetts before his trial, which is scheduled to begin on Feb. 7.

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.