Woman, 34, Accused of Posing as High School Student for 7 Months

A 34-year-old Texas woman pretended to be a high school sophomore for nearly an entire school year, fooling teachers, classmates and even the woman who took her in, school officials said.

“Everyone we talked to assumed she was a teenager like she said she was, because she looked like one,” Stuart Newlin, principal of New Life Christian School in Longview, Texas, told ABC News.

“She had friends,” he said. “Everybody liked her.”

It’s not clear why Charity Anne Johnson, who was arrested this week, allegedly enrolled at the school in October as 15-year-old Charity Stevens.

“That’s the mystery. We have no clue,” Newlin said.

Johnson had no transcripts but said she had been home schooled, he added.

“She came in with a guardian; there was no reason to be suspicious,” Newlin said. “Usually, parents come in, they fill out the paperwork and we take their word for it. If they come from another school, you transfer records. If they come from home school, they don’t have those records.”