Shelby Hewitt, the 32-year-old old woman accused of posing as a student in Boston Public Schools last year, pleaded not guilty to nine indictments in Suffolk Superior Court Tuesday, where new details emerged around how she allegedly pretended to be a traumatized child with significant special educational and emotional needs.
Hewitt is facing 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 the Department of Children and Families.
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“Obviously Ms. Hewitt is a young lady who’s got significant mental health challenges. That’s abundantly clear,” Hewitt’s attorney Timothy Flaherty said Tuesday. “What’s not abundantly clear, is how whatever happened was allowed to happen at the Boston Public School system for as long as it was.”
Officials with the Boston Public School system declined to comment, but some parents are blaming Superintendent Mary Skipper and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
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“To hear that this grown woman who crosses three schools within the year sitting in the classroom with my daughter and a whole bunch of other kids – that’s very scary,” BPS mother Robin Williams said after the arraignment. “You’re a social worker. You’re supposed to be protecting children. Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of it?”
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.
“The defendant created multiple names and dates of birth for herself to propagate this intricate but false narrative of being an extremely traumatized child with significant special educational needs and emotional needs,” Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Ashley Polin said. “In reality, the defendant was a woman in her early 30s who had attended both college and graduate school and was employed as a social worker with the Department of Children and Families.”
Hewitt was released on a $5,000 cash bail she had previously posted. She was also ordered to stay away from the stolen identity victim, any witnesses, all BPS employees, all schools including Boston Public Schools, the Walden Behavioral Health Center and children under the age of 18. Hewitt was also ordered not to engage in the practice of social work. Her case is set to go to trial in the fall.
