Young musician's career sabotaged by ex-girlfriend who secretly deleted his scholarship acceptance letter

Damages awarded for 'despicable interference' in clarinetist's career

Eric Abramovitz (McGill University)

A Canadian clarinetist has won C$350,000 (£200,000) in damages after an ex-girlfriend sabotaged his music career by impersonating him.

In 2014, Eric Abramovitz’s then-girlfriend Jennifer Lee sent an email in his name turning down a prestigious scholarship.

The compensation money was awarded for the “despicable interference in Mr Abramovitz’s career”, a judge said in the ruling.

Mr Abramovitz applied for a valuable scholarship at the Colborn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles in 2014 and flew to California to audition for the course leader, renowned clarinet master, Yehuda Gilad.

He was later sent an email telling him he had been successful, but he never received the message.

The email was intercepted by Ms Lee, who was a flute student studying alongside Mr Abramovitz at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada.

She replied to the music school saying he could not accept as he “would be elsewhere” and then deleted evidence of the interaction.

Next, Ms Lee created an email account in Mr Gilad’s name, giladyehuda09@gmail.com, to falsely inform Mr Abramovitz he had not been successful.

She created an alternative offer, for the University of Southern California, but offered only a small percentage of the funding Mr Abromaovitz needed to be able to take up the place.

The musician said Ms Lee knew he would have to refuse the offer since it was too expensive.

“She apparently did this because she feared that Mr Abramovitz would move to California, away from her, perhaps ending their relationship,” the judge said in the ruling.

The scholarship was worth about $50,000 (£38,000) a year.

Mr Abramovitz became suspicious a couple of years later when he met Mr Gilad at another audition.

The clarinet master asked why he was auditioning after rejecting the initial offer of one-to-one tuition.

Later a friend suggested Ms Lee, now a former girlfriend, could be responsible, and in May 2016 Mr Abramovitz tried to log in to the email account that sent the fake rejection letter.

Mr Abramovitz remembered a password Ms Lee used for Facebook, “and sure enough, we got right in”, he told the Washington Post.

The email account had Ms Lee’s contact information and the only exchange in the inbox was the rejection letter sent to Mr Abramovitz.

“It was not only a stab in the back but in the heart,” he said.

In a sworn declaration to the court, Mr Gilad said: “I am certain that had Eric not been robbed of his opportunity to study with me two years earlier, he could already have won an audition and been commanding this respectable salary two years earlier,” Gilad wrote.

“I am very frustrated that a highly talented musician like Eric was the victim of such an unthinkable, immoral act that delayed his progress and advancement as an up-and-coming young musician and delayed his embarking on a most promising career.”

Ms Lee did not appear at the hearing to defend herself, nor did she respond to a requests for comment sent by a number of news outlets.