Josh Dean (2:40)

It sounded great, but I think I was busy that day. I clicked the Wikipedia link but don't even remember reading the page.

State Farm Advertiser (2:47)

By the way, my friend Louisa also went to Princeton with Lyle Menendez who who lived in her dorm after he murdered his parents. It was a pretty good time to be at Princeton. Anyway, just passing along the story to you because I thought you might think it's interesting, if not a podcast, at least an afternoon of fun rabbit hole reading.

Josh Dean (3:07)

I never really did anything with the tip, at least at the time, but when I started working on this weekly version of Chameleon, it popped back into my head. And let me tell you, Rebecca was not wrong about this wild tale. This is Chameleon and I'm Josh Dean. This week, the story of one of the most precocious serial con artists in recent history. A man who fooled a high school, a college, another college, and God knows who else. After the break, the incredible story of Marathon Man James Arthur Hogue, a relentless con man who was a kind of real life talented Mr. Ripley. Minus the murder. Always so fresh, delicious and nutritious.

Louisa Burdett (4:00)

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Josh Dean (4:40)

This is Chameleon, the weekly.

Louisa Burdett (4:47)

My name is Louisa Burdett and I am a director of a school library. I work at a private school, 6 through 12 school in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Josh Dean (4:58)

This is Rebecca Lavoy's friend who like Rebecca and Kevin, lives in New Hampshire.

Louisa Burdett (5:04)

So I went to Princeton. I graduated in 91 and there was this guy on campus that I had heard of even before I met him because he was a little, you know, he was a little famous. He was this man of mystery. He had an intriguing name, Alexi Idris Santana. And then he started dating an acquaintance.

Josh Dean (5:27)

Of mine, this kid Alexi endris. Santana was two years behind Louisa at Princeton, class of 1993.

Louisa Burdett (5:35)

So I met him. Definitely didn't know him well, but What I'd heard about him was that he was an orphan or maybe just had one parent who was self educated and had worked as a ranch hand. Or like, somehow I thought that he was like a gaucho in South America or something like that. I think maybe it was just his exotic name.

Josh Dean (6:00)

Close. It was Nevada and also Utah. Alexei Indris Santana had supposedly come to Princeton from the wide deserts and big skies of the American west, where he had been herding cattle and running long distances when not sleeping under the stars. This was truly his backstory. As pitched to Princeton, Indra Santana had no high school transcripts. He applied to one of America's top universities as a self taught frontiersman with one of the thinnest application packets anyone could remember. A gigantic list of books he'd read, plus a 1410 SAT score, a glowing reference from the Utah ranch that once employed him, some newspaper clips about his surprisingly zippy track results, and a long moving personal essay that laid out his very unusual life. Princeton's admissions office loved Alexei. They gave him a bunch of financial aid.

Louisa Burdett (6:53)

So I had this image of him, you know, riding horses and reading Kierkegaard and just this really phenomenal person who sort of came out of nowhere.

Josh Dean (7:05)

Louisa wasn't the only one impressed by this real life international man of mystery.

Louisa Burdett (7:10)

At Princeton, there aren't fraternities and sororities, there are these eating clubs. And the most snooty exclusive one is called Ivy Club. And he bickered and was admitted there.

Josh Dean (7:26)

Pardon? Bickered.

Louisa Burdett (7:27)

That's a verb. It's a special Princeton verb for rush.

Josh Dean (7:33)

I guess, as in Russia fraternity, which means if you didn't go to US College with a big Greek scene to join, but typically only after enduring some kind of humiliating application process hazing, as the kids say. Anyway, Alexei bickered and was accepted to this very fancy eating club at Princeton. The oldest eating club, in fact, a club once described by F. Scott Fitzgerald as detached and breathlessly aristocratic. Just to give you a sense of it, Ivy didn't begin admitting women until 1991, which is just one year before Alexei arrived and warmed those cold Ivy hearts.

Louisa Burdett (8:10)

So they're like, look at us, we're so open minded, we let in this orphan genius boy.

Josh Dean (8:18)

Not an orphan exactly. Alexei said he had no father. He'd been killed in a car accident. His mom was alive but had cancer and was barely hanging on over in Switzerland. In fact, Alexi had been admitted to Princeton a year prior, but he'd deferred in order to go to Europe and be at his mother's bedside. But what really made Alexi stand out at Princeton was his athletic prowess.

Louisa Burdett (8:38)

He was a runner. I guess he was quite a good runner.

Josh Dean (8:41)

Not a good runner, a great runner. Alexei joined the track team and became overnight one of Princeton's best distance runners. A guy who was both fast and tireless. Alexi's coach and teammates loved him. But running, if you'll pardon the clunky cliche that actually fits in this case, was also his Achilles heel.

Louisa Burdett (8:59)

So, spring of my senior year, he was recognized at a meet by someone that he had gone to sort of high school with. He had gone to Palo Alto High, but turns out he had already been to high school and actually been to college and was 10 years older. And so he had gotten this scholarship at Princeton under false pretenses.

Josh Dean (9:24)

Lot to unpack there. In short, a woman at Yale recognized Alexei at a college meet as someone notorious from her past. A grown ass man who'd already been to college and exhausted his eligibility, but who had somehow gotten himself admitted to Palo Alto High School and was competing on the track team, which is where she'd previously seen him. I recognized him immediately, she told director Jesse Moss, a filmmaker who made a documentary called Con man about Hogue in 2003. He hadn't aged, she said. So Alexei Endris Santana was not in fact 19, nor was he even Alexi Endris Santana. He was James Arthur Hogue, a 31 year old college graduate with a criminal record who was just pretending to be a college student. He had successfully conned his way into Princeton, into Ivy and onto the track team, until he had the unfortunate luck of competing at a meet in front of someone who'd seen him before when he was pretending to be a high school student in Palo Alto, California, several years prior.

Louisa Burdett (10:21)

I think he served a little jail time and had to pay Princeton back whatever money they'd given him.

Josh Dean (10:28)

$22,000 in financial aid, to be exact. Hogue was arrested by Princeton cops in the middle of his Geology 316 class. A detective from the Princeton Borough PD asked Hogue flat out why he did this in a subsequent interrogation. The department wouldn't share the footage when I reached out to them. It's probably deep in the archives at this point, but you can see it in Jesse Moss documentary. What is your full name and age? James Arthur Hoag, 31. Under what name did you make application?

M. John Fahey (11:00)

Princeton.

Josh Dean (11:01)

I made it under Alexi Santana.

M. John Fahey (11:05)

Where did you tame that name?

Josh Dean (11:07)

I made that name up. For what purpose? Because I wanted to start all over again, without any burdens of my past. I mean, relatable. Who among us hasn't wanted to hit the reset button on life at some point, just unplug it, blow into the cartridge, and reboot as a whole new character with a new world and plot? Most of us don't actually do this. We don't unplug and reinvent ourselves. We just soldier on. But those who do often end up doing unbelievable things, most of them bad. Following that arrest in geology, James Arthur Hogue served a little less than a year and was granted parole, at which time he went to work in a New Jersey electronics shop, then vanished, along with some of the shop's equipment. And Louisa Burdett sort of lost track of him.

Louisa Burdett (11:59)

So then I graduate and I moved to Boston. I'd grown up in the Boston area, and so I was in touch with some of my high school friends, and my friend called me up. She was working in the geology department at Harvard after she had graduated from college.

Josh Dean (12:18)

This was the spring of 1992.

Louisa Burdett (12:20)

And she said, there's this guy here who went to Princeton, and I kind of like him. And I was wondering if, you know him, you know, maybe you could, like, hook me up or something. And I was like, oh, yeah, sure. Well, what's his name? She said, james Hoag. I was like, he's what? He's working at Harvard, and he was working somehow with minerals, like in the mineralogy museum or something. He was working with some very, like, rare gemstones. And so I told my friend this and she told her bosses at Harvard, and they tipped off the police and then they raided his apartment and they found all these precious stones that he had stolen from Harvard from the archives of this museum.

Josh Dean (13:15)

A shit ton of precious stones. According to the Harvard Crimson, police found, quote, a cache of gold, silver, rubies, opals, and more than 100 other precious and non precious gems and minerals which Hoag had stolen from the museum over a nine month period, plus a microscope and other Harvard property. They also found the missing electronic equipment from the New Jersey electronics shop.

Louisa Burdett (13:38)

And he also had one of those Harvard chairs, you know, those, like, wooden chairs that they give you as like an honorary. Oh, you know what I'm talking about.

Josh Dean (13:50)

Ceremonial chairs.

Louisa Burdett (13:51)

Yeah, yeah.

Josh Dean (13:52)

Harvard gives out chairs as gifts.

Louisa Burdett (13:54)

Like those chairs that you can buy that have, like the college seal. They're like wooden sort of shaker armchairs. And he had one of those.

Josh Dean (14:06)

What was he gonna do with that?

Louisa Burdett (14:07)

I don't know.

Josh Dean (14:08)

Not even comfortable to sit in.

Louisa Burdett (14:10)

I don't apparently he likes sleeping on the floor.

Josh Dean (14:12)

So James Hoag was arrested again and charged again. He pled guilty to a single count of larceny over $250 and was given a three year sentence.

Louisa Burdett (14:22)

And I always just thought it was the best thing that he was stealing from Harvard to pay Princeton, meaning Hogue.

Josh Dean (14:28)

Still owed that 22,000 in restitution to Princeton for pretending to be a gaucho who ran fast, which earned him a scholarship, which translated in legal terms to stealing an education.

Louisa Burdett (14:39)

And that's the part of the story that I feel like it doesn't seem to show up in what I've read or seen about it. And I think that's the best part of the story.

Josh Dean (14:48)

But it's not the end of the story either. James Arthur Hogue had a few acts to go. There's much more after the break.

M. John Fahey (14:59)

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Josh Dean (16:27)

Welcome back to Chameleon. You might wonder, as I did, if James Arthur Hogue faked his way into Palo Alto High, specifically as a stepping stone to get into Princeton. Palo Alto High, being a fancy, acclaimed school that sent many grads onto the Ivy leagues, was this A long game. Before talking to me, Louisa called her old friend who dated Alexei. Sorry, James.

Louisa Burdett (16:52)

You know, I've been telling this story for so long. I was thinking how much of this did I make up and how much am I remembering correctly? Like it's just become a story now. And she said that she remembers that he really impressed people at Harvard. They were like, oh yeah, we got this guy. He's really bright, he's really hardworking and diligent. He definitely had some spark that people noticed.

Josh Dean (17:18)

It's true stories about Alexei James from his former peers all talk about how smart and charming and fast on the track he was. He was exceptional. Which wasn't just because he was an older guy pretending to be young. A 31 year old dud is still going to be a dud if you think he's 19, maybe even more so.

Louisa Burdett (17:38)

Where was he actually from? Was he from Utah?

Josh Dean (17:41)

Kansas?

Louisa Burdett (17:42)

Kansas?

Josh Dean (17:43)

Kansas City. Specifically James Arthur Hogue, actual guy, true story version, was born in 1959 and was actually, as an age appropriate athlete, high school state champion in the two mile race. He went to the University of Wyoming for two years and ran track, then transferred to the University of Texas in 1980. The one constant in Hogue's life at every stop was running. He was undeniably great at it, gifted and driven. Every person who ran with or against him says this, but one of his Wyoming teammates said something very interesting to filmmaker Jesse Moss. To be a distance runner, you have to be a con man and a liar to yourself. You have to convince yourself that you're not hurting when you know you're hurting. And you have to con yourself into running five more miles when you want to quit. Right now, this is if you've done any distance running. Absolutely true. Running sucks. And any runner who tells you otherwise is lying. People like having run in the way those of us who write like having written. But writing and running, mostly unpleasant affairs. So how do you get through it? By fooling yourself. Anyway, James Hogue never finished college the first time. He was still at Texas in 1983 when he was arrested for stealing a bike frame and put on probation. He dropped out of school after that. I'm not sure why. But two years later, in 1985, at age 25, he resurfaces in Palo Alto claiming to be a 16 year old boy named J. Mitchell Huntsman. Born in San Diego but raised on a commune in Nevada, who tragically lost both parents to an accident in Bolivia. This precocious young Huntsman, emancipated by circumstances rather than by choice, was hoping to finish high school in order to attend Stanford. That fall, Huntsman entered the Stanford Open Invitational cross country race and won. But he didn't ever report to the officials table, which seemed fishy to a local reporter. He called the county recorder in San Diego and asked for a copy of Jay Huntsman's birth certificate. The reporter asked if there was anything strange about these records, and there was. Huntsman was dead. He died just two days after birth. A couple months later, Hogue was arrested for trying to use a Ford's check and spent two months in jail. Once released, he skipped town and spent two years bouncing around the West. At one point, he was using his own name, but claiming to have a doctorate and even worked at some sort of expensive outdoor camp for adults in vail. Then, in 1987, Hogue got in trouble again. Acting on a tip, police in Utah raided a storage locker that was said to contain stolen bicycle parts. And in fact, it did contain exactly that. More specifically, numerous high end bike frames that had been stolen in California. The locker was also clearly a home James Hoag had been living inside. This ability to find comfort in uncomfortable spaces is a recurring theme. Maybe it's why he never feared arrest very much. Prison cells at least have beds and toilets. Detectives also found numerous college application materials in the name Alexi Santana. One of those was for Princeton, which had just admitted him. Cops arrested Hogue and he pled guilty to the theft of the frames from his time in Palo Alto. But no one ever called Princeton to warn them.

Louisa Burdett (20:56)

He had stolen, like, several thousand dollars worth of bike parts, I guess so he had to, yeah, serve some time. That's why he deferred. Although he said it was because his mother was sick.

Josh Dean (21:08)

I should probably say, to circle back to the top of the show, that Rebecca hadn't just sent me this bizarre story out of the blue. There was a reason she'd remembered her friend's story. Because she'd recently seen news that the guy from her friend's dinner party story had been arrested again. This time, Hogue was in Aspen. Colorado's Rocky Mountains seemed to have become a home for Hogue. Or as close as any place could be home for a guy like him. It's where writer David Samuels found hogue for a 2001 New Yorker profile, and also where director Jesse Moss finally found him to do some interviews for his film Con Man. Shortly after showing up in town, Moss found a woman who had previously rented a room to Hogue. She didn't want to be on camera. But she told Moss that he was, quote, sick and vengeful. I don't even want to have my name associated with him, she said. The woman did pass Moss's number onto Hogue, who eventually called the director and even agreed to meet on some property he owned in another part of Colorado. Land, but no house. Moss described him as, quote, a drifter moving from town to town, doing construction work to feed himself, and keeping his few possessions in a storage shed. Moss, of course, had the same question as the cops in Princeton. The same question everyone has. Why? Why lie and create fake Personas? Why not just be James Arthur Hoag? His answer? Basically what he told the cops. I don't know that very many people are completely satisfied with their position. So people invent things about themselves all the time, and I don't think that's any mystery at all. What you think you know is not what is real. It's deep and maybe not wrong. But also, most people, again, do not go to these lengths. It doesn't matter how many masks you have, because there is something stable that's really you. And you are the only one who knows that that is the only reality that's true is what you have inside of yourself. A year later, James Arthur Hogue agreed to go back to Princeton with Moss for the film. And there he had a slightly different explanation, that it was a play and Alexei Santana was his character. The film came out, the story faded, and Hogue fell off the map. Colorado, and mostly Aspen, became the place where he anchored himself as much as he could. He was arrested again in 2007 after police raided a home he'd been staying in near Telluride, Colorado, and found more than 7,000 items stolen from houses and businesses in the area. He pled guilty and went to jail again at 47 years old. And then in 2016, he popped up again, following an incident that once again caught the attention of national media, like Good Morning America.

State Farm Advertiser (24:08)

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Josh Dean (24:10)

Youf can guy managed to live on Aspen Mountain illegally for two years without being caught. Authorities took him into custody yesterday, and.

State Farm Advertiser (24:17)

They say this is where he was living. He has a long criminal history, including posing as a high school senior.

Josh Dean (24:22)

This time, it was employees of the Aspen resort who'd called cops to report a very well hidden illegal shack that Hogue had apparently built on resort property. The shack was covered in camouflage paint and may have been built from construction materials that had gone missing from Aspen Co. Sites. When a local cop showed up to investigate, the man inside bolted out a back door. Authorities dismantled the shack, but Hogue came back two months later, nearly to the same spot, and was building a new shack when Aspen employees again called the cops, who again showed up and found some stolen tools, plus a very long extension cord pulling power from a local condo complex where he'd been parking his car, a green 2005 Nissan Xterra. A local detective ran the plates, got Hogue's name and Googled him. I was like, wow, this guy is really interesting, he told a reporter. I want to meet him. Turns out Hogue had been stealing sports gear and selling it online when someone spotted him in a local library. He was arrested and charged again. In addition to making up an elaborate fake life, a man illegally living in Aspen is now being called a thief. Denver7 learning new details tonight James Hogue has has already been arrested for illegally living in this shack you're looking at. Hogue pled guilty to felony theft and was sent back to prison again, this time for six years, a harsh sentence for a crime, but one the judge felt he deserved. You are a very consistent thief, Mr. Hoge, but you're a very bad thief because you get caught a lot, the judge said. And what it tells the court is if Mr. Hogue isn't in jail or prison or otherwise incarcerated, he's committing a crime. That's his way of life. A local reporter named M. John Fahey wrote a feature for Vail magazine after the verdict with the headline the End of the Run for con artist James Hoag. But it was not, in fact, the end of the run. The judge wasn't wrong, because none of these was the story Rebecca saw before writing to me about the Dinner Party story. As Fahey reported in a subsequent story from 2018, he had struck up a correspondence with Hogue, whom he considered to be a bit of a kindred spirit. They'd become close enough, in fact, that Fahey, in need of some new wheels, offered to buy the green Xterra, which was still in police impound. Here's what he wrote as voiced by an AI that seems to me to fit the spirit of Fahey, a true outdoorsman, often photographed with big hair and a thick beard.

M. John Fahey (26:46)

He said he'd been trying to find someone to take it off his hands because otherwise he was certain his captors would steal it.

Josh Dean (26:55)

This comes from Fahey's entertaining Aspen Daily News piece titled My Friend the Felon. The cops brokered a deal for the.

M. John Fahey (27:01)

Two men, and then, on a blustery April day, the very officer who had arrested Hogue, six months prior, met me at the impound lot and handed me the keys to the vehicle, which was still full of all of Hogue's worldly possessions. The Xterra had license plates two years expired, and all of doors were sealed tight with evidence tape that, I came to learn, is almost impossible to remove. My intent was to beeline to the DMV office in Aspen to make the Xterra legal. I wondered how far I would make it before getting pulled over. In less than half a mile, a bank of flashing lights appeared in my rearview mirror.

Josh Dean (27:45)

Fahey's story reported that Hogue was due to be released again in 2019, and here's how he ended the article.

M. John Fahey (27:51)

On the day he walks free, even if only for a short time, I intend to meet him at the prison gate and hand him back the keys to his green 2005 Nissan Xterra, in which I will have piled all his gear. At that point, I have no idea which direction he will choose to drive. It may very well be back to Aspen.

Josh Dean (28:18)

Fahey was a prophet of sorts, because that's exactly where Hoag popped back up again when he made the News again in 2001. Hogue, by this point, 61 and in his golden years, was cited, not arrested, for parking illegally in a different vehicle this time and stealing power from a parking garage in Aspen. Cops were responding to a burglary call when they spotted a long extension cord running power from a parking garage to a BMW SUV that turned out to be Hogue's home. Louisa Burdett, teller of the Dinner Party story, somehow missed this chapter. In fact, she'd missed all the chapters since the one she played a small role in. Did you then hear, like, when he was arrested in the 2000s, did you hear about it?

Louisa Burdett (29:03)

No.

Josh Dean (29:05)

No, no. So I haven't thought about it. Well, I mean, other than telling the story.

Louisa Burdett (29:08)

Other than telling the story, it makes me feel important because I feel like I played a role in bringing him to justice. Although, has he really been brought to justice?

Josh Dean (29:19)

The answer is yes and no. James Hogue has been arrested and tried and sentenced at least seven times by my count. But the rehabilitation part, well, it just doesn't seem to stick with this guy.

Louisa Burdett (29:33)

You'd think that someone who would do such kind of inventive scams that take a lot of brain power and, you know, creativity, imagination, like that, he would want to talk about it. He'd be proud. Like, I could see him being motivated by, you know, stick it to the Ivy League. I'm from Kansas and I put one over on you. But then you'd think he would be more like look what I did.

Josh Dean (30:06)

I was hoping for this too. I tried to locate Hogue today in 2025 and was unable to find him. Maybe he's living in a shack on a different part of Aspen Mountain, or at Vail or Steamboat, or really anywhere in the Rockies. There are a lot of places to hide out there. Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audio Chuck. It's written and hosted by me, Josh Dean and produced by Joe Barrett. Our Associate producer is Emma Siminoff. Sound design and mix by Blake Rook and Tiffany Dimmack. Theme music by Ewin lytramuin and Mark McAdam. Our production manager is Ashley Warren. Campside's executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadis, Matt Sher and me, Josh Dean. And finally, if I can ask a few favors before sending you on your way today, please rate, follow and review Chameleon on your favorite podcast platforms to help spread the word. I know everyone says this, but it's true. Ratings and reviews really do help and if you have any feedback, tips or story ideas, you can email us@chameleonpod campside media.com or leave us a message at a special number We've set up, 201-743-8368, dial plus one from outside North America. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

Louisa Burdett (31:35)

I think Chuck would approve.

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