Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Pretended To Be In High School - The James Hogue Story

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

James Hogue is an American impostor and career con man best known for infiltrating elite institutions by assuming false identities. 

Disney Plus wants to know, are you ready? Yes! For Marvel Studios, Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, now streaming on Disney Plus. Let's do this. One of the best Marvel movies of all time is now streaming on Disney Plus. Hey, you weren't listening to me. I said, Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, is now streaming on Disney Plus. Meet the New Avengers.

That's cool, then. Marvel Studios, Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, rated PG-13. Now streaming on, you guessed it, Disney Plus. So this adult pretends to be a high school student so that he can run on the track team? Now the guy's name is James, and James, he's around 25 years old when this story starts, and he's living in California, and the dude seems to really, really love long-distance competitive running, like he used to do it back in his school days. And so one day in 1985, he comes up with a crazy idea.

Why not pretend to be younger and enroll in high school again so that he can run? competitively again. So he enrolls as a student at a local high school and he pretends to be 16 years old and he gives them a name that he had stolen from someone else and he gives them a whole bullshit elaborate backstory about how he's an orphan whose parents died and the school admins they feel sorry for him and they believe him and they're just like all right and so boom 25 year old James is now going to high school and he does pretty well there probably because he's been there before, but he starts making friends and the teachers and parents love him, and he's like

acing all his classes. But as I said, what James really wants to do is run. And he's really good at it. I mean, he's a former state champion. Now, the school is still checking out his backstory while he attends. So he can't officially join the school's track team yet. But he does start training with them. And during training, James, he doesn't hold back. Like he doesn't pretend to be at the level of the runners, James fucking dominates. He kicks the shit out of them on the track. And then there happens to be a big cross-country race coming up. And James wants to run it so bad. Now, he's not officially on the school's team. However, he is allowed to run the race with the other runners, but they tell him not to finish. Like, he's not allowed to officially win because, you know,

he's not on the team. And the next thing you know, he is running that race. And he's trucking along, and soon enough, he's way ahead of the other runners. Next thing he knows, they're all way behind him, and instead of quitting the race at the last minute, like he was instructed to do, James can't resist himself, and he crosses the finish line, and he comes in first place, beating all those teenagers. So now all eyes are on James, the big winner. But after the race, he doesn't report to the official's table and claim his victory. So some sports reports, who are covering the race are like, well, that's weird. Who the hell is this kid?

And one of those reporters starts asking around, and he gets James's name. But not his real name, the fake name he used to enroll in school. And so this reporter then calls up the local municipal office and asks if there's a birth certificate on file under this fake name. But here's the thing. When James adopted this fake name, he didn't just invent it out of thin air. He actually stole the identity of a random kid who happened to die as an infant. And so this dead kid whose name he's been using has an actual birth certificate on file. And so the municipal office tells the reporter, yeah, we have his birth certificate. And it says he died two days after birth. And the reporter is like, oh shit, he's a fraud. And he calls the school and he puts the story out there. And so the school

confronts James and James is forced to leave the school while they investigate. And so over the next couple of years, James, he just can't stop being a fraud. He keeps enrolling in these competitive, long-distance races under fake names and beating a bunch of teenagers and winning the trophies. And at one point, he even gets arrested for forging checks. But mostly, he drifts around with friends throughout the Western United States, and he just bullshuts people about where he's from and his credentials. But then, in 1987, he gets a job working out.

this bike shop and there he steals $20,000 worth of bicycle equipment from his employer and so bam he gets caught and he's arrested. Here's his mugshot and then old James gets sentenced to five years in prison but here's where it gets really crazy because this is where he cons his way into an Ivy League school. So during those years when James was drifting around the western United States he had been corresponding with a bunch of universities about being a student there. He was applying to colleges using yet another fake name. And one of those schools he applied to is Princeton University. And so James, he gives them like a wild bullshit backstory. He tells them he's a self-educated ranch hand from Utah who loves to

read classic literature while he's tending to his cattle. And also supposedly James has high SAT scores as well. And I don't know if he fake those scores or what. But regardless, it all works. The admins at Princeton love his story. It's so non-traditional and it's just what they're looking for. And so in 1988, while he's sitting in prison, he gets forwarded a letter from Princeton University saying, congrats, you're admitted, you can start this fall. But of course, he can't start this fall because he's in prison. And so he writes to the Princeton admins and he claims that he needs to defer his enrollment by one year because his mother is dying. in Switzerland and he needs to go be with her. Of course, this is all bullshit. He doesn't have a mother

in Switzerland, but Princeton believes it. And they're like, yeah, sounds legit. So a year later in 1989, James is released from prison on parole. He served his time. So he gets out and he goes from Utah straight over to New Jersey, where Princeton is, so that he can start attending, which leaving the state violates his parole, but whatever. He doesn't care. He's made it to Princeton and The dude has also got financial aid, so he doesn't even have to pay for it. And so James, who's now 28 or 29 years old by this point, he's pretending to be a much younger college freshman at Princeton. And pretty quickly, he starts making friends there.

And everyone loves him, and he, of course, joins the track team so that he can compete in long distance running, and Bro makes it all the way through his freshman year with this fake identity, and no one suspects a thing. Then it's 1991, and he's in his sophomore year now. And one day, he's at a track meet, getting ready to compete with all the other runners. And one student is just chilling there. And she's actually there to watch her friend compete in the race. But at some point, she sees James.

And she's like, damn, that guy looks familiar. So she recognizes him because she went to high school with him back when he was first pretending to be 16 years old and dominating that high school track meet. And she's like, is that the adult man who pretended to be a student at my high school? Is that the same guy? And this blows James's scam wide open. And she starts telling people and eventually Princeton finds out and they get the police involved.

And so pretty quickly, police show up to one of James's classes and bam, they arrest him in class in front of everyone. How embarrassing. Here's his mugshot. But it's still. still not over for James, because there's a professor who feels kind of bad for him. And he helps him make bail while James waits for his trial. And this professor also helps James move to Massachusetts. He then helps him get a job at Harvard Mineral Museum, helping catalog minerals and gems

and stuff like that. Which sounds like legit, steady work, and that this could be good for him, and like, maybe he'll turn his life around. But of course, James screws it all up, because that's the kind of guy he is. Shortly after he begins working there at the museum, he starts low-key stealing minerals and lab equipment from the place. And, you know, because he's an ex-con with a history of scamming people, he becomes a prime suspect. So police, they go to his place and they search his room and they find $50,000 worth of shit that he stole from the museum. And so he ends up serving

five months for the fraud at Princeton. Then he serves 17 months for stealing all that stuff. from the Harvard Mineral Museum, and since then, he appears to have been in and out of prison with all these fake identities all the way up through at least 2016. So he's like kind of still going as far as we know. Lesson not learned.