Man who posed as teenager attended Ohio school for a year undetected
A 24-year-old man has been arrested for posing as a 16-year-old student and enrolling in a high school in Ohio, according to the City of Perrysburg police.
Anthony Emmanuel Labrador Sierra was arrested on Monday for pretending to be a teenager and attending Perrysburg High School beginning in January 2024, a case the school said was 'highly unusual.'
According to a police report, the suspect had reached out to several schools in the Perrysburg area in November 2023 to enrol as a student, telling admissions personnel that he had experienced homelessness and was a Venezuelan immigrant.
He also claimed he was a human trafficking victim, police said.
According to ABC News, when Labrador first met with the school to enrol, he presented a Venezuelan birth certificate showing his date of birth as Dec. 2, 2007. He informed the school that he was residing at an address in Toledo and started as a student on Jan. 19, 2024, police said.
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Kathy and Brad Melfred, a couple in the area who had previously housed foreign exchange students and had adopted children, agreed to help Labrador. He began living with them on March 21, 2024, according to police.
The Melfreds became Labrador's permanent guardians through the Wood County Common Pleas Court Juvenile Division and also helped him obtain a social security number and a driver's licence.
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On May 14, the couple received a call from a woman named Evelyn Camacho, who informed them that Labrador was a 24-year-old man and the father of her child, police said.
Camacho sent the Melfreds a photograph of Labrador's driver's licence, which had a birth date of March 27, 2001. She also provided Facebook photos of her and Labrador with a young child.
According to the Perrysburg school district, on May 15, administrators met with Labrador to address the claims.
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He denied the allegations and asserted that the birth certificate he had provided during his enrolment was accurate; nonetheless, given the seriousness of the accusations, he was escorted off school property and instructed not to return, the school district wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
Police said they contacted U.S. border services to assist in the investigation and that agents confirmed that Labrador's actual birth date was March 27, 2001 — the same as the one on the licence presented to the Melfreds by Camacho.
The search also revealed that he was in the U.S. on an expired work visa and was considered an 'overstay' in the country, police said, adding that his work visa expired the same year he reached out to schools in Perrysburg.
Labrador was arrested at 4:15 p.m. on Monday on forgery charges, police confirmed.
The suspect, who at the time of his arrest had attended the school for over a year, was on the junior varsity soccer and swimming teams, which have since reported the incident to the Ohio High School Athletic Association.
The school district said the turn of events was 'heartbreaking' after the community acted in 'good faith' to care for a person they believed needed it.
'Staff and local families offered support to someone they believed was a vulnerable teen. Their compassion reflects the best of our community. Though trust was violated, we remain proud of those who chose to help,' the statement said, before reiterating that the safety of the student body was the district's 'top priority.'
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Labrador is in custody at Wood County Jail with a court date set for May 29. It is unknown if he has obtained a lawyer.
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