Bettencourt Pays the Price of Lying at University of New Hampshire Law School

That D.J. Bettencourt, the New Hampshire House Majority Leader is resigning for misrepresenting to law school officials is already in the nation’s headlines. But what is that misrepresentation? What did Bettencourt falsify at law school to get his degree? According to Rep. Brandon Gudia, Bettencourt lied to officials at the University Of New Hampshire School Of Law, and no one knows it better than him. Well, that’s a silly end to the ‘youngest’ House Majority Leader in the history of New Hampshire, but it shows that his meteoric rise can well be attributed to a pattern of lying, deceit, and disrespect of the system.

The matter came to fore when Guida saw an announcement on Bettencourt’s Facebook page claiming that he had graduated from law school. To Guida, this was very surprising, because Bettencourt was supposed to have interned at Guida’s law office, and as far Guida remembered, Bettencourt had appeared only for a single day, and done legal work only for one hour. That was hardly the requirement sufficient for a law degree.

According to Guida, Bettencourt “approached me and said that he was in trouble. He did not have the credits he needed to graduate. He needed to an externship or an independent study with me.” While Guida agreed, Bettencourt did not put in more than one hour and failed to show up in the following weeks. Suddenly, he posted on the Facebook of his graduation.

Guida confronted Bettencourt and got a confession. Bettencourt admitted that he had falsified all the reports because he did not have the time. “He let me see the reports and I was stunned the reports are 11 weeks of fictional things that never happened in detail … He details court hearings that never happened. He details meetings with clients that never happened.”

When the media called up Bettencourt he said “There is a dispute involving my independent studies.” When the media called up the UNH law school, they said “Anything that involves a student’s records, we’re not at liberty to discuss or comment on.”