New court date set for Shelby Hewitt, woman accused of posing as teenage Boston student

A brief hearing was held Wednesday morning in the case of a 32-year-old woman accused of pretending to be a Boston Public Schools student.

Shelby Hewitt has pleaded not guilty to several crimes, including forgery, identity fraud and making false claims to her employer. A hearing was held in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday morning, but Hewitt did not appear, as she is in a facility out of state. Her lawyer was also not present, as he was in an accident.

A new court date was scheduled for Oct. 1, and Hewitt will be required to attend.

A Boston public student who went to school with Shelby was at the court house with her mother. They are disappointed by the delay.

"I'm still waiting for answers from BPS because I feel like they're not doing anything about the situation, and I also just feel like they’re playing games," said Janell Lamons.

"We are the victims, not her. She's the person who pretended to be a student 16, 13 years old sitting among our children," said Robin Williams, Janell's mother.

Hewitt's lawyer, Timothy Flaherty, has hired a psychiatric expert, and an evaluation is reportedly ongoing. The court date was pushed back to allow the evaluation to be finished. Prosecutors said Wednesday that they believe the case might be headed toward resolution.

Click here to view a timeline of the Shelby Hewitt case.

Court documents show that between 2021 and 2023, Hewitt posed as student as young as 13 while working as a social worker for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.

Her lawyer has said his client has a history of mental illness.

"This is a young lady that has severe mental health challenges and she has been dealing with it on a life-long basis, it is well documented and she is continuing to deal with it," Flaherty said following a hearing last year.

"I think the bigger question is how, and what does that say about the safeguards in place," he added. "The why, you know, will be answered, but again, as I mentioned in court, this is a young lady that has severe mental health challenges and she's been dealing with it on a life-long basis, it's well documented and she's continuing to deal with it."

Hewitt was indicted on nine charges in Suffolk Superior Court last year, where new details emerged around how she allegedly pretended to be a traumatized child with significant special educational and emotional needs.

She faces three counts of forgery, two counts of forgery at common law, one count of uttering, one count of identity fraud, one count of larceny over $1,200 and one count of making false claims to her employer. The indictment alleges that between Dec. 6, 2021 and Feb. 3, 2023, the social worker carried out an elaborate scheme to convince the Boston Public School system and the state that she was a child as young as 13 while working for DCF.

Hewitt bought the domain name @masstate.us and used it to create two fake DCF workers with phony email addresses and phone numbers in December 2021. She then used an alias and the real identity of a child in state custody to enroll herself in the Walden Behavioral Treatment Center for an eating disorder and three different Boston Public Schools, where she received special education services. All while collecting her $54,000 salary from the state.

She was released following her arraignment on $5,000 cash bail and ordered to stay away from the stolen identity victim, any witnesses, any BPS employees, all schools and children under the age of 18. She was also ordered not to engage in the practice of social work.

The deception came to light in June of 2023 when a man came to English High School, claiming he was withdrawing Hewitt, who he said was his daughter, over bullying. The school discovered an error in her paperwork and notified police. Police later searched an apartment in Jamaica Plain and found evidence of forged comments.