This podcast details true crime cases. It contains adult themes and may contain descriptions of violence.

It is not intended for children. Listener discretion is advised.

Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Once Upon a Crime.

We're in the series Bad Teacher, where I share cases of educators who committed newsworthy crimes.

This week I'll tell you the story of a man whose brilliant mind and business acumen took him from a third floor tenement walkup as a boy to a multi-million dollar gated estate in Manchester by the sea Massachusetts. A Yale University graduate a

state in Manchester by the C Massachusetts. A Yale University graduate who became an esteemed faculty member at MIT

Professor John J Donovan built a fortune as the founder of computer consulting businesses and a corporate training guru.

But with all of that, Donovan's greed and an untimely accusation of abuse would cause him to

perpetrate a bizarre hoax that would ruin both his family

relationships and his reputation.

This is the last chapter in the series Bad Teacher, the case of John J Donovan Senior.

In 1990, John J. Donovan Sr., or Professor Donovan, as he preferred to be called, was living the good life.

The company he'd co-founded in 1977, Cambridge Technology Partners, had become highly profitable, winning

contracts worth up to $300,000 annually from major corporations like Hewlett-Packard and

Oracle.

Cambridge Technology provided training seminars for their top-level management teams.

Donovan and his partner Stuart Madnick, a former post-doctoral student and colleague of Donovan's, had started the company

from a concept and grew it into a multi-million dollar company in less than a decade.

In 1986, Madnick agreed to be bought out of the company by Donovan.

Donovan continued to grow the business and profits soared.

Between 1987 and 1989, Donovan earned $7 million, and by 1990, he was worth $100 million.

Donovan was able to purchase over 500 acres of land in and around his adopted hometown of

...