Ukrainian Man, 23, Arrested for Pretending to Be High School Student
http://abcnews.go.com/US/ukrainian-man-23-arrested-pretending-high-school-student/story?id=37200979
Here we have a TWENTY-THREE y/o MAN spending his days – pretending to be a TEENAGER – and socializing daily with girls as young as 13-14 y/o. So you think that fake ID’s are not common and not that much of a problem ? Do you think that drug diverters and serious substance abusers are not using fake ID to obtain prescription medications to abuse or sell ?
A high school student in Pennsylvania who appeared to be leading his class was arrested this week after officials say he was actually a 23-year-old Ukrainian man using a false name.
The police in Harrisburg say that the person locals knew as teenager Asher Potts was actually a 23-year-old Ukrainian man named Artur Samarin.
The Harrisburg Police reported that Samarin had been enrolled at John Harris High School since the fall of 2012.
He had remained in the U.S. after his visa expired and had obtained a Social Security card and undisclosed “additional U.S. documents,” police said.
Samarin has been charged with theft, identity theft and tampering with public records, police said.
While living under his assumed name, he had become a member of the school’s ROTC and Naval Sea Cadet programs, according to ABC affiliate WHTM.
WHTM also obtained footage from a recent youth summit where he attended as a panelist.
No details about how Samarin was discovered have been disclosed, but WHTM reported that he was arrested while in class.
“He was nice but I didn’t expect him to be that old,” student Khaiyon Rice told WHTM.
“While we do not know all of the details surrounding the arrest, we are treating this as a serious matter,” said Kirsten Keys, a spokesperson for the Harrisburg School District told ABC News in a statement.
“At this time, the investigation is in the hands of the Harrisburg Bureau of Police. The district will continue to cooperate fully with the police department as they move forward with their investigation.”
Harrisburg Police Capt. Gabriel Olivera told ABC News that there are “still other pieces” of the investigation underway. No one else has been arrested “yet” in connection to the case, he added. He was unable to comment on how the alleged crimes were discovered.
Samarin has had a preliminary hearing but has not entered a plea, according to the district attorney’s office. He did not have a lawyer as of this morning and his first formal hearing is scheduled for March 4. Olivera told ABC News that Samarin is being held at the Dawson County Prison on $2,000 bail.
Filed under: General Problems
I agree fully that fake ID’S are and have been a serious issue in our country for many years. Prior to 911 terrorists obtained false identification at License bureau’s though out the country, as a matter of fact one of the terrorists involved obtained a driver’s license from a small branch in southwest lower Michigan in the very same town that the Christmas movie “Prancer” was filmed in. Although this was not one of the terrorist who was on the planes, that small brach was closed down shortly afterwards.
Having a 23 year old posing as a high school student is scary, essentially the fact that he was involved in ROTC and Naval training programs. This person’s agenda has to have some significance in getting in to the US military and I don’t believe that it was for US patriotic reasons. Obviously if we think that the cold war is over, we just might be wrong.
I’m a firm believer in the thumb print identification process. Most banks won’t cash checks without a thumb print and I think that state ID’S should have thumb prints recorded on their magnetic tapes. Then all Pharmacy’s need are print readers to verify the identity of a person picking up a prescription. I also believe that it will help all around with the identity theft problem this country is experiencing.