James Arthur Hogue | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Other names |
|
Education | University of Texas at Austin, University of Wyoming, Princeton University |
Occupation | Con man |
Known for | Entering Princeton University under a false identity. |
James Arthur Hogue (born October 22, 1959) is an American impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan.
Hogue was raised in a working-class family in Kansas City, Kansas, and graduated from Washington High School in 1977. [1]
Hogue attended the University of Texas at Austin in the 1980s, but left without a degree. [1] He also attended community college. [2] In the late 1970s, he was a student at the University of Wyoming before dropping out when he did not perform well on the cross country team. [2] [3] [4]
In September 1985, Hogue, now 25 years old, stole the identity of a deceased infant and enrolled as a student at Palo Alto High School as Jay Mitchell Huntsman, a 16-year-old orphan from Nevada. [5] On October 7, 1985, Hogue entered the Stanford Invitational Cross Country Meet. [5] Hogue ran far ahead of the field and won the race, but did not report to the officials' table, arousing suspicion. [5] Due to his mysterious background and physical prowess, local sports reporters dubbed him the "Mystery Boy". [3] Jason Cole, a reporter covering the event for the now-defunct Peninsula Times Tribune, uncovered Hogue's identity theft, and Hogue left town. [6]
In 1987, Hogue applied to Princeton University, using the alias Alexi Indris-Santana, a self-taught orphan from Utah, where he was then living. Hogue's application materials claimed that he had lived outdoors in the Grand Canyon, raising sheep and reading philosophy books. [7] Princeton invited Hogue to attend in the fall of 1988, but he deferred admission for one year, telling Princeton his mother was dying. [3] In reality, Hogue had pled guilty to possessing stolen bicycle equipment, and had been sentenced to five years in prison. [4]
Hogue served nine months before being paroled from Utah State Prison in March 1989. [4] Having also received a financial aid award from Princeton, he immediately left for the college, in violation of the terms of his parole. [1] For the next two years, he lived as Santana, was a member of the track team, and was admitted into the Ivy Club, one of Princeton's most exclusive eating clubs. [5]
His real identity was exposed when Renee Pacheco, a former classmate from his days as "Jay Huntsman" at Palo Alto High School, recognized him. She contacted reporter Jason Cole, who exposed Hogue a second time. On February 26, 1991, Hogue was arrested in class and charged with forgery, theft, and falsifying records. [8] In October 1992, Hogue pled guilty to third-degree theft for taking more than $22,000 in scholarship money and was sentenced to nine months in jail. [8] Hogue served 134 days in jail. [9]
At some point in 1992, Hogue was briefly employed by the Harvard Mineralogical Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a part-time cataloguer. [9] At the time, Hogue was taking a course in mineralogy at the Harvard Extension School. [9] In April 1993, the museum discovered that gems, mineral specimens, microscopes, and other items worth $50,000 had disappeared, and suspected Hogue as the result of a tip. [9]
On May 10, 1993, police arrested Hogue in Somerville, Massachusetts, and charged him with grand larceny. [9] On May 26, 1993, Harvard police returned to Hogue's Somerville apartment and recovered $600 in electronic equipment reported stolen from a New Jersey electronics firm where Hogue worked in the summer of 1992. [10] In June 1993, Hogue was charged with two counts of larceny and one count of receiving stolen property by the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office. [10] Hogue's theft was one of the largest in the history of the Harvard University Police Department. [10]
Hogue violated the conditions of his parole by returning to Princeton and hanging around the campus using the name Jim MacAuthor; he had not officially enrolled, but had attended social functions and eaten in the cafeteria. After a graduate student recognized him, he was arrested on February 19, 1996, and taken into custody by the Princeton Borough Police – who later released him on his own recognizance. [11] He was later incarcerated in the Mercer County Correctional Center on a conviction for defiant trespass.[ citation needed]
Hogue was released from prison in 1997 and vanished from the public eye.[ citation needed] Between 1997 and 2003, Hogue was arrested at least twice for theft. [12]
In January, 2005, police with a warrant searched Hogue's home in San Miguel County, Colorado, finding 7,000 items, worth over $100,000, stolen from nearby homes where Hogue had worked as a remodeller and repairman. The stolen goods "packed his house and a small secret compartment he'd built." [13] He was apprehended in Tucson, Arizona, on February 4, 2006, by Deputy United States Marshal Richard J. Tracy Jr. [14] [15] and deputies from the Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff's department while Hogue was sitting in a Barnes & Noble cafe, surfing the internet.[ citation needed]
On March 12, 2007, Hogue pled guilty to theft, in return for limiting his sentence and dropping additional charges. [16] He was released on probation in 2012.[ citation needed]
On November 3, 2016, Hogue was arrested in Aspen on a misdemeanor theft warrant from Boulder County, Colorado. [17] Aspen police discovered Hogue living in an illegally constructed, camouflaged shack on Aspen Mountain, [12] and possibly in the midst of building a second illegal structure on the mountain. [17] Hogue gave a false name when apprehended and may be charged with criminal impersonation. [17]
In 1999, filmmaker Jesse Moss tracked Hogue down in Aspen, Colorado, to interview him for a documentary. Moss was a student at Palo Alto High School when Hogue enrolled as a student using a false name. The completed film, entitled Con Man, was released in 2003. [3] [12]
Alexi Indris Santana was born under the name James Hogue, but that was only the first of many aliases he adopted through his life so far. After a successful high school career in Kansas City in which he set a national record in the 4-mile, he headed to the University of Wyoming. Unsuccessful on the cross country team, he dropped out and that's when his life got interesting. He enrolled briefly at a community college, was arrested for theft in Texas. He re-enrolled in a California high school, under a different name, pretending to be a 16 year-old senior. He was discovered, and arrested briefly again ... the story goes on. and on.
He woke up one morning and decided to become someone else.