James Hogue

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James Hogue
Born	October 22, 1959 (age 47) Kansas City, Missouri
Occupation	Con man

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

James Arthur Hogue was born in Kansas City, Missouri and spent his youth there. He has refused to talk about much of his childhood.

In 1986 Hogue enrolled in a Palo Alto High School as Jay Mitchell Huntsman, a 16-year-old orphan from Nevada. He had adopted the identity of a dead infant. A suspicious local reporter exposed him.^[1]

In 1988 Hogue enrolled at Princeton University using the alias Alexi Indris Santana, a self-taught orphan from Utah. He deferred admission for one year because he had been convicted of the theft of bicycle frames in Utah. Hogue claimed in his application materials that he had slept outside in the Grand Canyon, raising sheep and reading philosophers. He violated his parole to enter class. For the next two years he lived as Santana and as a member of the track team. He was also admitted into the Ivy Club. ^[2]

In 1991 Hogue's real identity was exposed when Renee Pacheco, a student from the Palo Alto High School, recognized him. He was arrested for defrauding the university for $30,000 in financial aid and sentenced to three years in jail with 5 years probation and 100 hours of community service.^{[citation needed]}

On May 16, 1993 Hogue made headlines again through his association with Harvard University. Having lied about his identity again, he was able to take a job as a security guard in one of Harvard's on campus museums. A few months into his tenure, museum officials noticed that several gemstones on exhibit had been replaced with inexpensive fakes. Somerville police seized Hogue in his home and charged him with grand larceny to the tune of $50,000. ^[3]

On February 19, 1996 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. When a graduate student recognized him he was arrested on February 16 and was given to the custody of Princeton Borough Police who later released him on his own recognizance. He was later interred into the Mercer County Correctional Center and was tried for defiant trespass. Hogue was released from prison 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 in making the film. The completed documentary, entitled Con Man, was released in 2001.

In January 2005 police with a warrant to search Hogue's home in San Miguel County, Colorado found 7,000 stolen 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." ^[4] He was apprehended in Tucson, Arizona on February 4, 2006 by United States Marshall Richard J. Tracy Jr. ^[5][6] 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 a single felony count of theft of more than $15,000 by receiving in exchange for a prison sentence not to exceed 10 years, and prosecutors' agreement to drop other theft and habitual criminal charges.^[7]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Con Man home page