Last week was an eventful one for student impostors.
The New York Times reported in Thursday’s front-page story that a 29-year-old convicted sex offender had posed as a seventh grader in an Arizona school for nearly two years.
Neil H. Rodreick II ““ posing as Casey Price ““ enlisted the help of people he met in prison to act as his legal guardians and shaved daily with razors to maintain the con.
A similar incident occurred right here at UCLA. The front-page article in last Tuesday’s Daily Bruin, “Man, 36, allegedly posed as student,” relayed the story of Sheldon Ross, who is currently on trial for falsely posing as a graduate math student.
Both stories are disturbing, the latter particularly so because it is so close to home.
I lament that I was myself fooled by Ross’ apparent deception; I knew Sheldon as a regular acquaintance, if not a casual friend, over a period of years.
Incidents like these make one wonder how such things can go unnoticed.
I first met Sheldon in the spring of 2004 at a California College Republicans conference hosted at UCLA. It would kick off a few years of Sheldon’s intermittent involvement with conservative groups on campus. At one point, Sheldon had become a fixture at every Bruin Republicans meeting, and I was involved in publishing him in the Bruin Standard.
As of press time, Sheldon was not accepting visitors at his detention facility. Calls to his attorney, public defender Pedro Cortes, were not immediately returned.
No one seemed to question his eccentric identity, even after we discovered he was a bisexual black Republican who supported affirmative action and ethnic studies.
According to Jane Sherman, third-year graduate math student, it became apparent in fall 2004 that Ross wasn’t a graduate math student. “I totally thought he was a student until I studied with him. I realized that he knew nothing of the stuff, math itself, not just what we were learning.”
Ross was enrolled as an extension student in several graduate classes, said Sherman. UCLA math Professor Terence Tao confirmed that Sheldon was enrolled in the class, but had dropped it after performing poorly on the midterm.
“The professors were kind of skeptical of him. They just saw that he was an extension student,” Sherman said.
Faith Christiansen, last year’s Bruin Republicans chair, expressed concern about Sheldon’s attendance at several events, including those at her apartment last year.
“I’m responsible for the people that are in my house. There are 18-year-old freshman who are mingling with this grown man.”
Sheldon had been tentatively appointed editor in chief of Nommo, the African American newsmagazine, in the fall of 2004. He attended six weeks of training for the position, until a routine check determined that he wasn’t a student, according to Arvli Ward, director of Student Media.
“At the end of training we do a registration check, and it came up that he wasn’t registered as a student,” Ward said.
It’s natural to question why this discovery was not made public or why there was no official action taken at this point, as he continued his involvement on campus ““ including membership with the club rugby team ““ under the guise of being a student.
According to Ward, it was apparent only that Ross was not a student at the time, but said that there was no proof that he hadn’t been a student at some point.
“A plausible explanation was that he dropped out,” Ward said.
According to Mike O’Connor, operations manager for the UCLA Student Media Center, Sheldon was found in the Student Media publication offices three years ago and again last year, but he was simply asked to leave.
It wasn’t until recently that the police were called to deal with the situation, said O’Connor.
“It was spring of last year. He was arrested once then and then again now,” O’Connor said.
I was quite puzzled as to why the story hadn’t developed as many on campus, including myself, continued to believe that Sheldon was whom he claimed he was.
Charles Proctor, editor in chief of the Daily Bruin last year, said that he wasn’t aware of the situation with Sheldon at the time.
“I didn’t even know who he was,” Proctor said.
When I read about Sheldon’s apparent deception, I spent hours looking up my friends and acquaintances on the UCLA directory to check if they were students.
Luckily, Sheldon didn’t have any violent tendencies. But in general, it’s not too difficult to imagine a similar situation involving someone more dangerous, with more ulterior motives.
It’s quite possible that the person sitting next to you in class, or even a friend, could be someone very different from who you think they are.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
If you’ve secretly wondered if Lazar is an impostor, e-mail him at dlazar@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.