By Bill Parry
An Elmhurst teenager is apologizing for a fib that swept him, and a buddy, into a media firestorm this week. Mohammed Islam, 17, is admitting that he made up a story about making $72 million trading stocks at school, but not before a magazine article generated headlines around the world with the release of its issue Sunday.
New York magazine is also apologizing to its readers.
“We were duped. Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better. New York apologizes to our readers,” the magazine said in a statement.
The senior at Manhattan’s elite Stuyvesant High School has hired 5WPR, a public relations firm, whose president and CEO, Ronn Torossian, is in full damage-control mode.
“Media which has reported that a 17-year-old teenager has made millions in the stock market is simply inaccurate. Mr. Mohammed Islam fibbed to a reporter and for this he is very apologetic,” Torossion wrote in a statement. “Most of all he is sorry for the embarrassment which he has caused his family. While Mr. Islam runs an investment club at his NYC public school, he is not an active participant in the stock market.”
In a video released Tuesday, Islam said, “I pretended to be something I’m not” and went on to add, “I didn’t fully realize the consequences of my actions.”
Islam proceeded to put the onus on New York’s reporter Jessica Pressler for the way she interviewed him and his friend Damir Tulemaganbetow. “We gave into her pressures of wanting more and more and more,” Islam said. “We were both excited by the attention we were given by the media hype.”
The original article on Mo, as he’s called by classmates, ran in the magazine’s annual Reasons to Love New York edition, sparking global attention. Based on his claim that his net worth was in the “high eight figures,” the magazine said it sent a fact-checker to Stuyvesant, where Islam produced a document that appeared to be a Chase bank statement attesting to an eight-figure bank account.
“After the story’s publication, people questioned the $72 million figure in the headline, which was written by editors based on the rumored figure,” New York magazine said.
Newspapers ran with the story, social media exploded and Mo and his pal Damir Tulemaganbetow were even booked to appear on the cable business channel CNBC when they began to get cold feet.
By nightfall, Mo Islam told the New York Observer that he had invented the whole story.
“It is not true,” Islam told the newspaper. “I run an investment club at Stuy High, which only does simulated trades.”
Less than 24 hours later, the article was debunked, completely. According to 5WPR, Islam, and his friend Tulemaganbetow have not traded stocks together.
“These teenage boys simply did not expect this story would go so far. They are sorry for anyone who may have been hurt by this story,” the statement concluded.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4538.
