A 29-year-old woman enrolled as a student at a New Jersey high school because she was lonely and “wanted to return to a place of safety,” her lawyers have said.
Hyejeong Shin is accused of falsifying a birth certificate and joining New Brunswick High School, pretending to be a teenager.
She was indicted by a grand jury for providing false documents and hindering her own prosecution, but has pleaded not guilty to the charges which could carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Her lawyers described a sad tale.
Ms Shin arrived in America from South Korea when she was 16 to attend a boarding school in Massachusetts.
She went on to study political science and Chinese at Rutgers University in New York, and was named a learning community scholar in 2017.
She practised meditation, enjoyed singing and had been studying for a masters degree.
But it appears that her life started to unravel soon after, as she got divorced and fell $20,000 (£16,300) behind on rent, according to court records.
“I’m no psychologist,” her lawyer, Darren Gerber told the New York Times, “but separated from her family and being in a different country – as well as a couple of other stressors in her life – may have caused her to act very uncharacteristically.”
Using a doctored birth certificate, she enrolled at New Brunswick High School, where she lasted only four days before arousing suspicion from staff.
No malice intended
The story quickly went viral online with parents and teachers around the country raising a number of safeguarding issues. Some students thought she could be involved in human trafficking.
But Ms Shin’s lawyers have pushed back, saying that although it was a “bizarre” thing to do, “and it may be difficult for people to understand,” there was no malice intended.
”At no time was anyone or any student in danger and this entire case is more about my client wanting to return to a place of safety and welcoming and an environment that she looks back on fondly and nothing more,” he added.
New Brunswick Police also said that as part of their investigation, they hadn’t found anything to suggest her intentions for enrolling were designed to bring harm to the students or staff.
In an effort to avoid jail time, her lawyers told the judge that she intended to apply to a programme that diverts first-time offenders from the criminal justice system and enables them to wipe their record clean after a successful period of probation, the New York Times reported.
Whatever the outcome, she hopes to return home to South Korea after the case concludes, they said.
Ms Shin is due to appear in court again on May 15.
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