James Hogue

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For the Australian politician, see James Hogue (politician).
James Arthur Hogue
Born (1959-10-22) October 22, 1959 (age 64)
Kansas City, Kansas
OccupationCon man

James Arthur Hogue (born October 22, 1959) is an American impostor who most famously entered Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan.

Early life

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 didn't perform well on the cross country team.[3][4]

Criminal career

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] 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 philosophers.[7] Princeton invited Hogue to attend Princeton 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 Princeton, 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 gone missing, 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.[11] 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.[citation needed] 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. In 1999, Jesse Moss, a director making a documentary film about Hogue, tracked him down in Aspen, Colorado and secured his cooperation.[12] The completed documentary, entitled Con Man, was released in 2003.[12] During this period, 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.

On March 12, 2007, Hogue pleaded guilty to theft, in return for limiting his sentence and dropping additional charges.[16] He was released on probation in 2012.

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]

References

  1. ^ a b c Farber, James Barron With M. A. (1991-03-04). "Tracing a Devious Path to the Ivy League". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  2. ^ "The Almost Too Strange to be True Story of Alexi Santana". Runner's World. 2008-09-22. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  3. ^ a b "Documentary probes life of 'Mystery Boy' / Filmmaker and ex-classmate analyzes drifter who duped Palo Alto High, Princeton". SFGate. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  4. ^ a b c "Business | Marathon Hoax: Track Star, Liar, Ex-Princeton Student In Jail | Seattle Times Newspaper". community.seattletimes.nwsource.com. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  5. ^ a b c d "The Runner". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  6. ^ "The con artist next door – The Denver Post". Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  7. ^ "The unbelievable story of the imposter who came to Princeton". The Tab Princeton. 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  8. ^ a b "Princeton 'Student' Gets Jail Sentence". The New York Times. 1992-10-25. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  9. ^ a b c d e "Bogus Princeton Student Held in New Crime". The New York Times. 1993-05-16. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  10. ^ a b c "Student Indicted for Stealing Gems From Harvard Museum | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  11. ^ "Lifelong conman who tricked his way into Princeton in '80s arrested". Mail Online. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  12. ^ a b c d "Cops: Aspen Mountain shack squatter is notorious con man | AspenTimes.com". www.aspentimes.com. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  13. ^ "Hogue Pleads Guilty to Theft". Telluride Daily Planet. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  14. ^ Fugitive "Con Man" from Colorado Nabbed in Tucson, United States Marshals Service, February 4, 2006 Archived September 23, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Suspect in thefts near Telluride has led life of cons, Aspen Times News, February 8, 2006. Archived September 18, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Hogue pleads guilty to felony theft charge, Denver Post, March 13, 2007.
  17. ^ a b c "Con man arrested at Pitkin County Library | AspenTimes.com". www.aspentimes.com. Retrieved 2016-12-08.

Literature

  • Samuels, David. The Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue, ISBN 159558188X

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Hogue&oldid=827346046"