New Jersey: Woman, 29, arrested after posing as high school student
A New Jersey woman was arrested after posing as a high school student and enrolling in classes for four days, authorities said.
Hyejeong Shin, 29, was arrested and charged with forging a government document. School board officials say she showed school officials a fake birth certificate in order to pose as a teenager and attend classes at New Brunswick High School.
“By submitting false documents, an adult woman posing as a student could be enrolled in our high school,” New Brunswick Superintendent Aubrey Johnson said at a school board meeting.
“She’s been in a few classes and then most of the time in our counseling suite as we try to get more information from her,” he said.
Johnson said police were notified immediately when employees discovered the ruse. New Brunswick Today reported that she caught the attention of school staff after they could not identify her parents or legal guardian.
However, Shin, who reportedly posed as a 15-year-old freshman, managed to interact with students before the faculty caught on. Some students even said she contacted them to hang out after class.
“Some of the girls that I know, the girl asked her to hang out on Commercial Avenue, but they never showed up and she started acting weird with them,” one student told CBS Philadelphia.
“She was in our high school, and we also made sure to tell our students not to contact her — remotely or in person,” Johnson told concerned parents at the school board meeting.
Johnson said the school communicates with the students Shin directly interacts with.
A photo of Shin was distributed to all students, who were warned not to engage further with her. She was denied all property in the school district, according to a letter sent to the students.
The superintendent also said the district is looking at ways to reform the documentation process to uncover counterfeit papers.
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https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/26/new-jersey-woman-29-arrested-after-posing-as-high-school-student-18171531/ New Jersey: Woman, 29, arrested after posing as high school student