Put ‘Em On Blast: Peter Thomas

Sheree Whitfield’s Blind Date, “Dr.” Tiy-E Muhammad, Is A Fraud
12 Oct 2010 1 Comment

On tonight’s episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Sheree Whitfield went out on a blind date with a “doctor”, who she believed to be a psychiatrist.

As it turns out, he was not a psychiatrist, but a psychologist. Then, as it turns out, he is not a psychologist either. He doesn’t have a doctorate in anything, and he is not licensed anywhere to practice psychology.

Interesting, especially considering that this fake doctor made it a point to tell Sheree that he doesn’t put on airs, and that “what you see is what you get”.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The former Clark Atlanta University associate professor turned castaway on TBS’ “The Real Gilligan’s Island” has called himself a psychologist on his Web site and book jacket covers, yet he is not licensed to practice psychology in Georgia or anywhere else.

Tiy-E Muhammad is a “professor” on the TBS reality show “The Real Gilligan’s Island.” But Clark Atlanta University says it let him go. His credentials are as uncharted as a desert isle.

Kara Sinkule, a spokeswoman for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said Muhammad, known as “The Love Doctor” on a local radio station, could face misdemeanor criminal charges.

Claiming you are a psychologist without a license is illegal, she said.

Muhammad, 35, says he’s a doctor, but he didn’t earn a Ph.D. in psychology at the school from which he has said he graduated, school records show. In fact, he attended Southern Illinois University for just one semester as an unspecified graduate student, said SIU spokesman Tom Woolf.

Muhammad said he left Clark Atlanta, where he was an associate professor in the psychology department for four years, because he wasn’t paid enough and he “no longer felt that spark” from teaching. School officials said he left after they discovered his credentials were bogus.

Muhammad, who received a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Eastern Illinois University, said Monday he was unaware that claiming to be a psychologist without a license was illegal.

“I checked it out when I moved here. It’s not against the law,” he said.

But when a reporter read Muhammad the Georgia Law Code that relates to psychologists (Sec. 43-39-7), he said, “I’m a life coach, I say I’m a life coach. It makes things simpler.

So, to recap … he checked to see if it was against the law in Georgia to pretend to be a doctor, and he believed it was not against the law, so he promptly set up shop pretending to be a doctor, counseling people and even teaching at a university, all based upon lies about his credentials. Then, when the newspaper busted him on his fake credentials, and told him he could go to jail for it, he claimed that he is not a doctor after all, but a “life coach”.

Ugh. Five years later, he’s at it again. It sounds like the state really does need to file criminal charges against him, because he is never going to stop this fraud otherwise.

It’s just another example for the ladies out there that, if a man makes it a point to tell you, “what you see is what you get” on the first date, chances are that he is hiding something big.

Either way, this is not his first reality show gig, so it’s pretty easy to figure out why “mutual friends” set up Sheree on a date with this fraud. Camera time is valuable, after all, and he got quite a bit of it this evening.

All in all, it sounds like Sheree needs new friends.