In a secret room behind a plywood door hidden by his refrigerator, James Arthur Hogue had hidden Honduran mahogany, a rare fly rod, marijuana-growing materials and a table he built himself.
The remainder of the small home rented near Mountain Village, above Telluride, by one of the country’s most prolific imposters was crammed with more suspected stolen items – hand-woven rugs, paintings, Italian floor tiles, tools, clothing with price tags still attached, never-used linens and a cache of day planners, still in cellophane.
By the time investigators in San Miguel County cataloged the loot last month, they were on their way to solving what they say are as many as 50 thefts dating back several years. The evidence they gathered, valued at more than $100,000, filled a 40-foot tractor trailer, a 33-foot horse trailer and two pickups.
And it would lead to Hogue’s arrest Saturday in Tucson, where he had fled to after Mountain Village police became the latest law officers to home in on a man who has conned and thieved his way into the highest echelons of academia and into homes and businesses across the country for more than 20 years.
In that time, Hogue has taken on and shed identities like a character out of Hollywood. He won a scholarship to Princeton, worked a stint as an elite cross-country running trainer in Vail, landed a job at the Harvard Extension School – and served numerous stints in jails and prisons around the country.
He had invented personas including Jay Mitchell Huntsman, a 16-year-old orphan from a commune in Nevada; Alexi Santana, a self-educated cowboy from Nevada; and Jim MacAuthor, a Princeton University graduate student.
He even became the subject of a documentary film, which recently debuted on Cinemax.
“People need to realize he may not be a violent person, but he has had a very negative impact on any community he’s been in,” said Mountain Village police investigator Robert Walraven.
Walraven said Hogue came to the Telluride area initially in 2000 and was arrested and convicted that year for a theft. He paid a fine and left the area, turning up in New Jersey and Utah before returning to Telluride in 2003, when he started a woodworking business, building doors, cabinets and bookshelves for homeowners in upscale Mountain Village.
Investigators now believe he was also regularly stealing from his clients. Authorities became aware of the alleged thefts when a condo owner reported that she had suspected Hogue of taking items from her home and had gone to his house to confront him. While there, she told police, she spotted some of the stolen items.
Mountain Village police initially went to Hogue’s house the first week of January to question him about the items. Then on Jan. 7, someone reported seeing him hiding materials under a water tower at a lake south of Mountain Village. Investigators found stolen items hidden under a tarp and returned to his home Jan. 10 with a second search warrant.
Hogue was gone. He had left the state and was tracked to a Barnes & Noble at a Tucson mall, where he was arrested while surfing the Internet on Saturday afternoon.
Hogue had more than $1,000 in cash and his passport. U.S. Marshal Rich Tracy, who arrested Hogue, said he believes Hogue was planning to leave the country.
“He was here trying to get the paperwork together to travel to Russia,” Tracy said.
Hogue is now charged with theft by receiving and is in a Pima County, Ariz., jail awaiting extradition to San Miguel County.
Hogue, 46, began his life of deception when he registered, at age 25, under the name of a dead infant at Palo Alto (Calif.) High School. He passed himself off as a 16-year-old and became a star on the cross-country team. Six weeks into the school year, his deception was discovered, and a few months later he was arrested for theft.
Hogue surfaced next in Vail, where he taught running at Jim Davis’ Cross Training Clinic. According to a lengthy New Yorker profile of Hogue in 2001, Hogue claimed to be a Stanford professor and raised eyebrows by drinking Perrier laced with mustard and smoking cigarettes at the end of runs.
He bounced around from San Marcos, Calif., where he built high-end bike frames, to St. George, Utah, where he carried off his greatest deception by being admitted to Princeton as a self-educated ranch hand – meaning there were no transcripts or teacher recommendations – who could run a mile in under 4 minutes and scored an unusually high SAT score of 1,410. Those last two accomplishments were true.
He was unmasked there in his sophomore year and arrested. After more thefts and jail time, he turned up in 1997 in Aspen, where he was caught with a stolen bicycle and sentenced to another year in jail.
Hogue’s next stop was Telluride.
“The whole thing has actually surprised me,” said Keith Mark, a lawyer who grew up with Hogue in Kansas City and attended the University of Wyoming with him in the late 1970s. “Obviously, this is somewhat startling news. It’s disappointing. If you’d have known this guy all the way up through, when he was 19, 20 years old, you would not believe this could be true.”
Mark called Hogue “honest” and “smart academically.”
“His talents running were incredible. This kid was just an incredible guy,” Mark said.
Hogue is to be extradited to Colorado by March 1 to face his latest charges. He also faces two outstanding warrants in California.
Denver Post researcher Barry Osborne contributed to this report.
James Arthur Hogue’s journey
Oct. 22, 1959 – Born James Arthur Hogue in Kansas City, Kan.
Jan. 21, 1983 – Arrested for theft in Austin, Texas, and placed on 36 months’ probation.
Sept. 10, 1985 – Enrolls in Palo Alto (Calif.) High School purporting to be Jay Mitchell Huntsman, a 16-year-old orphan from a Nevada commune.
Oct. 25, 1985 – Police reveal Huntsman is Hogue and is 26.
May 14, 1986 – Arrested for forging checks in Palo Alto and later sentenced to 90 days in jail.
May 1986 to May 1987 – Teaches running at Jim Davis’ Cross Training Clinic in Vail, claiming to have a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
October 1987 – Allegedly steals $20,000 in tools and bike frames from the San Marcos, Calif., bicycle company where he worked.
1987 – Moves to St. George, Utah. Applies to Princeton University under the name Alexi Indris Santana, an 18-year-old self-educated ranch hand.
March 30, 1988 – Arrested at a storage facility in St. George and later charged with possessing stolen bicycle frames.
April 1988 – Accepted to Princeton as Alexi Santana and awarded a $15,000 scholarship.
May 19, 1988 – Pleads guilty to receiving stolen property, sentenced to six months in prison.
May 26, 1988 – Requests a one-year deferment for Santana’s enrollment at Princeton because mother was dying of leukemia in Switzerland.
September 1989 – Enters Princeton as a member of the class of 1993 and competes on the track team.
Feb. 16, 1991 – While competing at Harvard-Yale-Princeton track meet, is recognized by a Yale senior from Palo Alto High School who alerts her former track coach. The coach notifies a reporter, who tips Princeton.
Feb. 26, 1991 – Arrested on the Princeton campus and charged with forgery, wrongful impersonation and falsifying records.
Feb. 10, 1992 – Pleads guilty to theft by deception.
Oct. 23, 1992 – Receives a 270-day sentence, with credit for time served, and five years’ probation. Ordered to pay $21,124 restitution to Princeton.
May 10, 1993 – Arrested in Massachusetts and charged with possession of stolen property.
January 1994 to September 1995 – Held in the Mercer County, N.J., jail and charged with probation violation.
Feb. 19, 1996 – Arrested on Prince ton campus and charged with trespassing after claiming to be a graduate student named Jim MacAuthor.
March 1996 to January 1997 – Jailed in Mercer County for probation violation.
1997 – Moves to Aspen.
July 15, 1997 – Arrested in Aspen for bicycle theft and sentenced to one year in jail.
May 30, 2000 – Arrested in Telluride and charged with theft. Pleads guilty and is fined $1,500.
Sept. 3, 2001 – The New Yorker profiles his criminal past in an article headlined “The Runner.”
Early January 2006 – Police visit Hogue’s home on a report from a Mountain Village resident that some of her property disappeared when he worked for her.
Jan. 7 – Seen hiding items under a water tower at Trout Lake. Authorities say they later find stolen goods stashed in a “secret room” of Hogue’s home.
Jan. 21 – “Con Man,” a documentary by Jesse Brooks, who attended Palo Alto High in 1985, airs on Cinemax.
Saturday – Arrested in Tucson and awaits extradition to Colorado, where he faces charges of receiving stolen property in connection with as many as 50 burglaries.
Sources: Mile End Films; San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office; Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff’s Office; U.S. Marshals Service
