Did This Felon Con The Big 6 Into Publishing Him?

So yeah, this Mitchell Gross guy and I live in the same suburb of Atlanta and the attorneys around here are a pretty close knit group. Almost a year I when the original story broke I started asking some of my lawyer friends if they ever heard of him and none of them had.

I did track down his information from the Georgia Bar Association an found out he was disbarred without a hearing a number of years ago. I also went through his reviews on Amazon and discovered that most of them were suspicious because most of them probably came from sock puppets who only commented on his books.

So Gross' case raises a couple of questions for me. At what point should publishers start doing due diligence background checks? Apparently Gross has been disbarred for a while, it would have taken a minute for a publisher to discover that information. Also, even if the disbarment didn't show on the website at the time of his first publication the address on the registry shows that it belongs to a rather well known company in that area that was established in 2000, three years before his first book came out. That should have sent up a red flag. Also, he claimed to be an Olypmic fencer in 1998, but he's 62, so in 1998 he would have been 58? That also should have raised a red flag.

It seems that two minutes of research could have saved headaches for his publisher, as would a number of these scammers. I don't get why publishers take claims of personal accomplishment for granted when it is so super easy to just do a google search and then ask the author a few questions before signing the contract.

Also, what sort of requirement does Amazon have to make sure their reviews are ligit? Because after researching Mitchell Gross and then looking at a number of self published scifi/fantasy authors I've come to the conclusion that the vast bulk of reviews for authors who haven't reached commercial success are not to be trusted.

Great sleuthing, MDSchafer!

MDSchafer said:

So Gross' case raises a couple of questions for me. At what point should publishers start doing due diligence background checks?

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How much harm does it do to readers if he lies about being a lawyer and fencer?

None whatsoever. So why put any onus on the publisher at all to check out his claims? He's a liar, but those lies don't harm anyone and probably don't sell books, either. The publisher is not complicit in any sort of crime.

Him posting fake reviews is fraud, however. He's trying to trick people out of their money. I think publishers should strongly warn their authors against that kind of behaviour.

But that's all they can do. The publisher doesn't employ the writer; they only licence the writer's intellectual property. And it isn't fair to expect a company to police the actions of people who don't work for them.