Lazar says he has degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1993, the Los Angeles Times looked into his background and found there was no evidence to support his claims.[1] Stanton Friedman was only able to verify that Lazar took electronics courses in the late 1970s at Pierce Junior College.[5] The Times did discover that in 1990 Lazar had pled guilty to felony pandering, declared bankruptcy and listed his occupation as self-employed photo processor on documents.[1] A 1991 Times article reported, Lazar was "on probation in Clark County, Nevada on a pandering charge. His educational and professional background cannot be verified -- a fact he attributes to government deletion of records."[6]