UPDATE 2/27/16: The case of the creepy 23-year-old who posed as a high school student just went from bad to worse. According to the New York Daily News Artur Samarin, known to his high school classmates as Asher Potts, has already been arrested for identify theft, but now he's been charged with sexual assault for his fling with a 15-year-old classmate. He was 22 at the time, but his classmates thought he was their age. An investigation into the case is ongoing, and officials say more arrests are expected.
See original story below.
There's never a lack of cases of people posing as police officers—though none ending as unfortunately as this teen who happened to pull over an off-duty police officer while he played pretend. Another case of a person pretending to be someone else was the woman sentenced to eight years in jail after she pretended to be a man in order to trick her friend into having sex. Authorities in Pennsylvania discovered a high school honor student was actually a man who had been pretending for years.
Harrisburg High School honor student Asher Potts had a 4.16 GPA and was a part of the National Honor Society. But Potts didn't exist. As the Associated Press reports "Potts" in reality was 23-year-old Artur Samarin from the Ukraine. He had come to the U.S. with a visa which expired and enrolled in high school as a freshman after that. He was set to graduate in less than four months.
The AP cites Sgt. Terry Wealand as saying police were able to capture Samarin after receiving a "tip" two months ago. It is not known if someone else knew about Samarin's true identity, but authorities said they would face the consequences as well. When police arrested Samarin in his possession were a driver’s license and social security card. The man was said to have been living with people he made friends with per Sgt. Wealand.
If this sounds familiar it's because it happened in Never Been Kissed, as Gawker mentions. Drew Barrymore's character aside, a reporter who went undercover as a high school student, there was her brother Rob played by David Arquette. He re-enrolls in high school and passes for a teen (because he's dumb), gets a second chance at life, but then that veers into creepy territory when he starts seeing an underage girl and she mentions wanting to go "all the way". And that's what makes Samarin's case disturbing as well, the possibility of him taking advantage of someone during his ruse.
Samarin remains under arrest for charges of identity theft and tampering with public records, reports the AP.
