(update: bah, red herring, apparently. See the note @ the bottom of this post)
Remember 'James Clayton'? The (alleged) bike-thief/asshat that the Austin bike community just popped for allegedly befriending people with nice bikes so he could break into their homes to steal them? The one who's still in jail?
As it turns out, James Clayton just might be James Hogue, a damn-near celebrity fraudster and con man best known because he once fraudulently entered (and defrauded) Princeton University by posing as a self-taught orphan.
What's odd here is that the only mention of this connection seems to be a comment on the atxbs.com "wall of shame" -- I don't think the media has picked this up yet, which is interesting because this guy is practically the king of identity fraud and theft. Bike theft just seems to be this guy's thing.
Just ask the New York Times. Or Wikipedia. Or perhaps you'd like to just rent Con Man, the movie that presents "intimate and disturbing profile of ... elusive con artist" James Hogue. Or perhaps you'd just like to pick up a copy of "The Runner", a book by David Samuels that details how James Hogue's massive, sprawling lie of a false life came undone when he was CAUGHT FOR HAVING A BUNCH OF STOLEN GODDAMN BICYCLES.
Hell, I was living in Tucson when this guy got nabbed by the US Marshals for a bunch of theft and fraud warrants out of Colorado - where he had previously been arrested for .... wait for it .... BIKE THEFT. I remember this, it was a big deal then, and I remember reading about his fake life as the runner and track star Alexi Santana at Princeton.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that once you've had a book and a movie and a bunch of press coverage about your life of crime in the New York Times about your life as a con man, you've got some cojones or a severe lack of grey matter to keep on being a goddamn con man.
So: Is James Clayton really James Hogue? Let's take a look at con man James Hogue's mugshots:
Compare these with the recent mugshots of 'James Clayton':
... you have to admit, there's something there.
The guy's court date is Friday, March 6th. Grab some popcorn, folks, 'cause this is going to be something.
03/06/2009 Update: Andrea Ball of the Austin American-Statesman dropped me an email reply to a question I ran by her re: this possibility - and says James Hogue is still in jail. Thanks Andrea :)
Guess I'll get my tinfoil hat back out.
Images from:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/6780316/detail.html
http://www.atxbs.com/?q=node/655
http://www.atxbs.com/?q=node/406
1 comments:
you must not have compared their ear shapes
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