A clarinetist has been awarded C$350,000 ($266,500) in damages after his girlfriend sabotaged his music career by deleting an email offering a valuable scholarship.
Eric Abramovitz’s then-girlfriend Jennifer Lee’s then sent emails in his name to keep him from leaving her but when he found out he sued her.
Abramovitz had been desperate to win a place on a course at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, which was led by one of the world’s greatest clarinet masters, Yehuda Gilad.
Abramovitz had been desperate to win a place on a course at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles but was denied by his ex-girlfriend
Eric Abramovitz’s then-girlfriend Jennifer Lee
After flying to Los Angeles in 2014 for a live audition in front of Mr Gilad he was sent an email to tell him he had been awarded a full scholarship offer worth about $50,000 a year.
But the email was intercepted by fellow music student Lee, who had access to his laptop along with his email account because he trusted her, Buzzfeed News reported.
She found the email and replied in Abramovitz’s name, saying simply that he could not accept as he ‘would be elsewhere’ and then deleted it.
She then created an email account in Mr Gilad’s name, giladyehuda09@gmail.com, to falsely tell Mr Abramovitz he had not been successful.
Lee then invented an alternative offer, for the University of Southern California, where Mr Gilad also taught but with a fraction of the funding.
Abramovitz became suspicious after meeting the teacher who had offered him the scholarship and he then began investigating the emails sent from his laptop
Lee knew he would have to refuse the offer as it would have been too costly, said Abramovitz, who has recently accepted an offer to join the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
‘I was numb when I read the email. I had to read it a few more times,’ Mr Abramovitz, now 24, told BuzzFeed News.
‘When I found out I didn’t get it, it was really hard to deal with. I went through some really dark, sad, angry days.
‘We were living together at the time so she was the one to console me when I found out. “It’s really sick now that I look back on it.’
He stayed on in Montreal to finish his music degree, but the couple’s relationship soon fell apart.
Abramovitz’s suspicion was aroused when he met Gilad, some years later, at another audition at the University of Southern California.
When the pair started talking, Gilad asked him why he was auditioning again having previously rejected a scholarship offer.
Abramovitz decided to trawl back through his old emails and found email the email sent in Gilad’s name to him.
Gilad told him he did not recognise the words or the email address and that it was not from him.
The judge awarded Abramovitz damages for loss of reputation, loss of educational opportunity and a delay in entering his chosen profession as well as the ‘court’s revulsion at what Ms Lee has done’
Abramovitz then became suspicious that his ex-girlfriend was behind the emails, which was confirmed when he found he could access the fake Gmail account by using one of her favourite passwords.
In a damages case filed in Ms Lee’s home province of Ontario he cited loss of reputation, loss of educational opportunity and a delay in entering his chosen profession.
The Ontario judge awarded the C$300,000 Mr Abramovitz requested, plus an additional C$50,000 to express the ‘court’s revulsion at what Ms Lee has done’
The award also covered the ‘personal loss suffered by Mr Abramovitz by having a closely held personal dream snatched from him by a person he trusted’.
Lee’s actions were a ‘despicable interference in Mr Abramovitz’s career’, the judge ruled.