No verdict has been reached in the preliminary trial of a man who allegedly posed as a UCLA student, with the court instead opting to continue the trial on Feb. 15.
Mark Sheldon Ross was charged with probation violation in Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 1.
Ross’ attorney, Public Defender Pedro Cortes, declined to comment on the case because there are criminal charges pending.
Ross, 36, has been arrested three times on the UCLA campus since July 2006 and has allegedly posed as a student for at least two years.
Matt Arata, a fifth-year civil engineering student and Ackerman Union employee who aided university security in arresting Ross on New Year’s Eve, is a witness at the trial.
Arata said while performing a required check of all rooms in Kerckhoff Hall and Ackerman on Dec. 31, 2006, he saw a movement in an empty room.
Arata called a security guard, who found Ross hiding in a closet. Ross resisted the guard’s attempts to open the closet door.
The guard struggled for “a good 10 seconds” before the handle fell off, at which point they called university police for assistance, Arata said.
Ross has been breaking into the Student Media Offices for years, said Mike O’Connor, operations manager for the UCLA Student Media Center.
O’Connor said Ross would hide in the Student Media Office for entire weekends, downloading high volumes of movies and files off the Internet on certain IP addresses. Arata said university police confronted Ross about the downloading during the arrest.
“They were talking to him about fraud, saying, “˜What did you download on these computers?’ and “˜We told you never to come back here again,'” Arata said.
Arata also said he and Ross recognized each other because they used to play rugby together a few years ago.
Faith Christiansen, who graduated from UCLA in 2006, knew Ross through Bruin Republicans three years ago.
“He wasn’t a Republican,” she said. “I thought he just liked to argue and debate and be a part of something.”
She said she once stood in line with Ross to see a campus events movie, which requires students to show their BruinCards upon entry.
Christiansen said Ross was able to get into the movie, so she assumed he must have had a BruinCard.
But she added she did not know if Ross was ever actually enrolled at UCLA.
“I mean he used to say things like, “˜I went to Berkeley; I’m getting my Ph.D. in math; I’m playing rugby.’ When someone talks like that, and has a Facebook profile, … you sort of assume they go here,” she said.
Arata said he did not know anything about Ross’ prior convictions when he helped arrest him.
“I thought he was a smart-guy grad student,” Arata said, “and he was basically a con-man.”
Christiansen said Ross was quirky, but that she never had any reason to suspect him of anything. She added that Ross had what she described as a “fake British accent” that he said he acquired from Pacifica, Calif., which is listed as his hometown on his Facebook profile.
Arata also said he never found any reason to be suspicious of Ross.
“I thought he was a good guy ““ that was the extent of my experience,” Arata said.