If I was a 23 year old adult who could get away with being a teenager, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go back to school and actually live the life of a teenager. But then I’m not this Ukrainian dude called Artur Samarin.
Samarin decided to reinvent himself as a high school student named Ashley Potts and started attending Harrisburg High School, Pennsylvania where he became an honours student with a 4.16 GPA. That’s like really, really good. I suppose when you’ve got a few years experience on everyone else though it’s not hard to nail those high school tests.
Apparently he lost his VISA whilst he was in the States on a short stay ,and instead of trying to get it back or leave the country he instead ‘obtained’ a driver’s license, social security card and additional US documents. Good to know it’s not hard to create a completely new identity over there, if the need ever came about.
Once he had grabbed these items, Samarin enrolled in the high school as a freshman and stayed there for four years – he was a couple of months away from graduating when the local police received a tip off about him and started investigating. He was an exemplary member of the school, participating in a student advisory group on a food bank, and being an active member of the school’s ROTC and Naval Sea Cadet programs.
Images VIA
Marcel McCaskill had partnered with him to do a presentation on cosmic rays and said that the revelations were completely unbelievable:
It’s totally mind-blowing to me.
Honestly, he was a very respectable guy.
He was the perfect role model, someone you would want your son to look up to.
Some other kids in the program would joke that he was a Russian spy, mostly because of his accent, but nothing was wrong with him from my perspective.
I mean yeah, it is pretty crazy story right? I mean imagine if it turned out that one of your buddies was just some creepy older man pretending to be your age. That’s like, really weird man.
I’m kinda perplexed he didn’t get caught sooner though, I mean did nobody ask where his parents were? What about parent’s evening or PTA meetings or stuff like that? And more to the point, why the hell did he want to go through high school? This isn’t Never Been Kissed dude. Perplexing behaviour all round really.
Samarin is currently in jail and facing charges. You’ve gotta feel kinda sorry for him because he probably had the right reasons for going back to school, judging by his efforts for the community during his time there, unlike this dude who pretended to be an army veteran so he could get shopping discounts.
