Con Man (2003) - full transcript

Behind the many symbols
on this campus there is an idea.

It's the idea that Princeton
stands for an American education.

The idea that a university
is a place...

where men of learning believe in
young men of ambition...

and are given the opportunity
to start them on their way.

I'm detective John Reading...

of the Princeton Borou
Police Department...

Mercer County, New Jersey.

I intend to ask you questions...

about you fraudulently entering
Princeton University...

while using a fictitious name
and date of birth.



What is your full name and age?

James Arthur Hogue, thirty-one.

Under what name did you
make application to...

- Princeton University?
- I made it under Alexi Santana.

Where did you obtain that name?

I made that name up.

For what purpose?

Because I wanted...

to start all over again...

without any burdens of my past.

The thirty-one-year-old parole
violator who changed his name...

wrote himself an exotic resume...

and gained admission
to Princeton University...

was arraigned today
on a number of charges...



including theft.

We've been fooled certainly.

Five years before he conned his way
into Princeton University...

James Hogue pulled a similar scam
at my high school...

in Palo Alto California.

He told us his name
was Jay Huntsman...

and that he'd grown up on
a commune in Nevada.

And we believed him.

Since that time, Hogue's story
has always intrigued me.

Three years ago I set out to...

investigate the life
of this compulsive con artist...

by retracing his steps...

and trying to find the real Jim Hogue
behind the many masks he wore.

Back in 1985...

at the approximate age
of twenty-five years...

you entered Palo Alto High School...

and purported to be a sixteen,
seventeen-year-old youth...

Do you remember the name
that you assumed at that time?

Jay Hunstman.

Did you engage in
any athletic activities...

while you were at that high school?

I ran with the high school team.

The first time I saw him,
it was at a race in 1986.

I believe it was October of 1986.

The Stanford Invitational...

Cross Country Meet which is...

at the biggest, cross country
high school meet in the country.

And he ran in that race and won it,
and it create quite a stir.

He basically came out of nowhere.

He'd shown up at the school
I think a month before that...

at the beginning of the school year
in September.

And...

And he came in with
this very odd story...

telling people he'd grown up...

on a commune in Nevada...

that his parents had died in Bolivia,
that he was of Swedish background.

I think he intrigued, enthralled
everybody at the high school...

with his manner, with his talent.

I don't remember him...

talking very much about his...

background.

He seemed like a bit of a loner.

He didn't just blend into the pack.

It wasn't that he was
a little bit better.

He was quite a bit better.

We all thought
he was so phenomenal...

but he didn't seem to
want the limelight.

He wasn't one of those people...

who was running over
to talk to the reporter...

after winning a race.
It wasn't his style.

There was such great mystery to him,
so I start checking out the facts.

And the obvious intrigue
for me was...

I was calling a county recorder
down in San Diego, and saying...

hey do you have a birth certificate
on this guy Jay Hunstman.

And they looked it up and they said,
well, yeah we do.

I said, look, is there...

anything different
about this certificate

is there anything strange
that you can tell me about this.

And they said, well yeah,
it says he's dead.

At first he was a normal,
healthy baby.

But just two days later,
he succumbed to pneumonia.

It was a little startling
to find out that...

somebody could
actually dig into records and...

utilize records
that should be fairly private.

To this day
I'd still like to ask him...

how did you go about
picking our son's name...

how did you go about
using this birth certificate?

Can you give me
a little bit of background...

on who Jay Hunstman was?

I don't know who he was.

He was just some name
I found in a newspaper.

It was about the age
that I wanted to be...

and so I used that.

- Because he was a deceased person?
- Yes.

It was pretty unbelievable that...

someone could lie that much
and that well to so many people.

He essentially lied to
every single person around him.

The only person I really wanted
to talk to about it was him.

Because I felt like
looking him straight in the eye...

and going, who are you,
why did you do this.

And I never got that opportunity
because he was gone.

I always had in the back of my mind
that he would do it again.

That I would literally
run into him again as someone else.

What happened after
you were suspended...

from the high school?

I stayed in Palo Alto until...

probably June of the next year.

Were you arrested in
the state of California?

- Yes.
- What was the charge?

Forgery.

I spent...

about two months in jail
for that.

Where did you go after California?

Then I went to Utah.

So did you bring anything with you
from California to Utah?

Yes, I brought some...

bicycle parts.

1987 I was a detective for
the St. George Police Department.

And I received some information...

about some
stolen property out...

of the state of California.

One of my confidential informants
told me that...

he knew of a storage shed...

where there were several
bicycle frames...

that were property from a burglary
in Southern California.

We served a search warrant.

The storage unit was locked.

We cut the lock off.

When I raised the door...

I recognized immediately
the bicycle frames...

that were listed in my affidavit
for the search warrant.

Appeared to me that the suspect
in question, James Hogue...

was living out of the storage shed.

I found several things that were not
listed on the search warrant.

A first place trophy with the name
Alexi Santana on it...

which I found out later was AKA,
an also-known-alias...

that James Hogue was using.

He had run in races...

putting himself off
as a sixteen-year-old...

and at this time
he was in his twenties.

I also found some,
what appeared to be...

admittance and referral sheets from
some Ivy League schools.

I don't recall the schools exactly...

but I do remember that...

the name Alexi Santana
was on some of the applications.

I don't remember
how long we were there...

serving the search warrant...

on the storage shed...

when James Hogue arrived.

I was able to identify him,
and, at the time...

placed him under arrest
on a second degree felony...

receiving stolen property.

He finally admitted to...

being involved in the burglary
in California...

and plead guilty to
a plea bargain agreement.

You were sent to state prison
in Utah?

Right.

For how long?

I think I was in there
for six months.

Had you already made application
to Princeton University...

- as a student?
- Yes.

To the Admission Office,
Princeton University.

I have been living independently here
in the Mohave Desert since 1985

while my mother currently resides
in Switzerland.

Even though my formal education
is lacking...

I do not consider myself to be
disadvantaged for that reason...

and am requesting to be considered
as a serious applicant...

for admission to
Princeton University.

Sincerely...

Alexi Santana.

What we saw in Alexi
Indris Santana's application...

was a very bright,
imaginative young man...

who appeared to have a
hunger for learning...

and who had faced
a number of circumstances...

that kids don't commonly face.

From the experience on the ranch,
to his travels in Europe...

to the books that he'd read,
to his way of describing the books.

These were all indicative

of a kid who didn't simply
take schooling at face value...

but was actually...

motivated to learn.

To the Admissions Board.

This is a letter in support
of Alexi Santana's application...

to your school.

Alexi worked for me
as a livestock tender last summer.

Among the qualities needed to
do this job are...

creativity, calmness, toughness
and self-sufficiency.

I have the feeling that Alexi
is probably one of those geniuses...

at least he is unusual.

I recommend him without qualification
because he deserves it.

Sincerely, George Cina,
Lazy-T ranchPark City, Utah.

He was a kid who worked on a ranch...

and slept in a sleeping bag
just out in the fields...

and herded sheep and cattle.

And he'd been self-educated
in a commune in California

and was now interested in
coming to college.

And he was a fast runner,
and the coaches were interested.

Santana had sent articles
from Utah newspapers...

that said he'd run 8:59, I think,
on a cinder track for 3200 meters...

which is exceptional.

Just fast enough so he didn't
break the national record...

but fast enough so that
a coach would go, woah...

fly this kid out.

So then when I said, damn,
I just can't over this guy.

You know, the best distance runner
that I ever recruited...

because the times
that he had attained...

were better than anyone else
coming in from high school.

That just sort of pepped me up...

to really get into recruiting him
more heavily.

Well, I'd been told by the coaches...

Santana's coming out here...

and I want you to go out
running with him every day...

and I want you to run as hard
as you possibly can every day...

the entire time he's here.

And I want you to come back on
that Monday, or whenever he left...

and report to me
and tell me what you think.

You know, I couldn't drop him...

I couldn't even really
tire him out, for the most part.

And so of course
I came back and said

this guy's for real,
he can really run.

He'd been admitted and deferred.

And the story of the reason
he had deferred was because...

his mother was dying of leukemia
in Switzerland.

And he wanted to go be with her.

And, in fact,
I think the coach here...

paid for his plane fare
to go to Switzerland...

to be with his dying mother.

Students.

They come from every social group

every religion.

From high schools and prep schools.

Princeton doesn't try to
press them into a common mold...

but rather encourages them
to develop as individuals.

It offers them all
the same opportunity to learn...

and to develop the ability
to give what they know...

to their own community.

They have been selected carefully
for the promise of such giving.

It was the Cinderella story.

Alexi Indris Santana...

never even went to high school.

Had a really tough
time growing up.

And, yet a brilliant, brilliant guy.

Princeton kind of takes him in...

fully picked up the tab
for everything...

and nurtured him into
the brilliant phenom that he was...

but the fact is,
he was already brilliant.

His father had
been killed in a car crash...

and his mother
had just died of leukemia.

He had been a ski instructor,
done stunts for movies.

He was a bicycle racer,
and a track athlete.

Everybody knew his story...

every coach, every teacher...

every professor.

Everybody knew him
because he was so exceptional.

He was self-taught,
just read books...

while he was a shepherd.

And he took care of his mom...

and then decided that
he wanted to go and learn more...

and so came to Princeton.

The rumor was that he was taking...

somewhere between six
and seven courses...

where the usual load would be
somewhere between four and five.

And he was acing
every single one of them.

There was an aura about Alexi...

a kind of like, this guy's a genius,
this guy's amazing.

What type of courses do you take?

I take...

courses in science...

math, liberal arts.

How is the academic situation
pertaining to you...

at Princeton University?
How are your grades?

I get As and Bs.

He would answer any question...

in the minimum number of words
necessary...

and then there would be this silence.

He always wore a hat,
mostly to cover his eyes...

and his hair, because he was balding.

He always looked at the ground.

And he shuffled.

And he would talk very quietly,
often, sort of stuttering.

And he would...

he'd spend a lot of time
moving his feet...

and sort of mumbling a little bit
and kind of grinning and...

Real shy.

It was rare that he would
look you in the eye...

very rare.

He seemed to undergo a transformation
second year.

When he showed up, he had
long stringy hair and...

he was always
wearing sneakers and jeans.

And then he'd cut his hair,
he looked very clean-cut.

He was now wearing khakis
and button-downs and...

He'd become a member of...

what's the most prestigious
eating club at Princeton.

I think he just wanted...

what a lot of Princeton students or
Harvard students or Yale students...

that kind of come out of
the middle-of-nowhere America that...

see that as a prestigious way out.

You just keep knocking off
that next prestigious rung...

whatever it is.

You come to Princeton and...

you get into
the prestigious eating club...

and you go and get
your graduate degree or you go to...

Wall Street.
And then you've got it made.

And for him, the next step...

I really think, probably was
a Rhodes Scholarship.

How long have you been
associated with...

the Princeton University Track Team,
and in what capacity?

Since I...

came to Princeton, I...

practiced and competed
with the team.

And what are your specialties...

in track?

I do long distance races.

I walked into this big indoor stadium
and saw him running for Princeton.

I mean I recognized him immediately.

There was no doubt in my mind
that it was him.

And I was just completely shocked.

He hadn't aged. He looked like...

the same person that
I'd gone to high school with.

Five years later,
running for Princeton.

I mean I just knew
that he'd done it again.

And I also remember thinking, well...

what do I do.

I thought that if I walked up
to the Princeton coach...

he would think I was crazy.

I mean, what a crazy story,
to walk up to a coach and say...

I know one of your athletes
and he's not who he says he is...

and he did the same thing
when I was in high school...

and now he's done it to you big time.

So, I found the Princeton team
where they were all sort of sitting

and I walked up to them and I said...

what is his name?

What is that guy's name?

There were about eight of us,
in a geology class, in a lab.

And two men in suits came up...

and they consulted with
the Professor.

And then all of sudden,
the professor said...

Alexi Indris Santana...

these gentlemen want to
have a word with you.

They were reading him his rights...

literally two feet from
the open door.

He was standing in the door way.

We saw the cuffs go on.

And we said, holy shit,
what's going on.

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say can be
used against you in a court of law.

Do you understand these rights
as they have been read to you?

Yes.

We called him out of the class...

asked him what his name was...

and he said, James Hogue.

Then he was brought into
headquarters read his rights...

and then interviewed.

And then he gave me a full statement
indicating exactly what he did.

That guy's a genius.

I just thought it was unbelievable.

Just absolutely unbelievable.

I spent a lot of time with him,
a lot of real close personal time.

And when you're out in the middle
of nowhere running for hours...

that's when most track team type guys
will really bond.

Talk about friends, families,
problems, concerns, goals, dreams...

all sorts of stuff like that.

And I spent a lot of time
running with him and...

I really had no clue...

no idea how complex
his web of deception was.

He must have believed who he was.

He probably convinced himself,
that this is me, Alexi Santana.

And he actually believed he was
living this life, so to speak.

It makes sense that he didn't
want to have anything to do with me.

It makes sense that he didn't want
to talk to us about...

anything. It makes sense that
his stories didn't quite match up.

It made sense that...

he cracked the curve
in his science class because...

he'd actually done three years
of engineering and science.

It made sense that he went running,
was this fantastic runner.

He'd been running seriously
for years.

It made sense that he was pale...

when he showed up...

at Princeton because he'd
just come out of jail.

Who cares...

where he came from in the past?

But he was making the most
out of his education.

He was doing more than ninety percent
of the people at Princeton do...

in terms of really getting a lot
out of his education.

You know, why don't you just
reprimand him and leave him alone?

It seems appropriate that this...

drama was set
on a university campus...

because whenever anybody
goes to college...

they have a chance to
invent themselves again.

I remember not feeling at all bad
that he'd been caught...

or that sort of who he was
had been exposed.

Or even really that he was in jail.

It wasn't till I spoke to
someone later on...

who had also had experiences with him
earlier in his life...

and he sort of chuckled and said,
well, he'll get what's coming to him

you know what happens to
people in jail.

Then I felt bad.

Wyndotte County.

That's where we grew up.

In the state of Kansas, it's...

renowned as
the poorest county in the state.

My father and his father
both work for the railroad.

All of our parents
were hardworking, blue...

collar people by and large

and their philosophy was
they wanted their kids...

to get out of that

to be bigger, to be better.

You hear the rich folks saying,
oh, its equal opportunity...

everything is good, no problems,
times have changed.

Well, that's just not true.

It's not true, you know.

And they can say it,
and they can believe it.

They can say, we all
got the same chance...

but I'm telling you the kids
in the neighborhood...

from Kansas City, Kansas
where I'm from...

they don't have the same chance
as somebody...

that grows up in
a nicer neighborhood.

They absolutely don't.

So that's why I'm amused that...

he pulled the wool over Princeton.

I wouldn't be so amused if he...

pulled it over Northern Iowa.

Because, here in the Midwest

you're supposed to get the wool
pulled over your eyes.

But not Harvard. Not Princeton.

Not the Ivy League.

We started hanging out
when I was a sophomore...

and Jim was a junior.

Every single day...

Jim would run.

We would put on our tennis shoes...

boom, he would take off
and he would run.

And I would do my very best
to keep him in sight.

When Jim was in the ninth grade,
no one could touch him.

He would win virtually every meet.

No one could really
even believe that...

there was a kid
that could run like that.

People would come to watch him run.

We've never had a...

student that's run that fast.

His name's on
the record boards...

as the best modern two-miler...

that Washington High School
has ever had.

He could have been
a national champion.

He had that kind of ability.

I really thought that
Jim had the potential...

to run the world's record
in the mile

to run the world's record
in the half-mile.

He had the talent.

He also had the mental make-up
to do anything.

He was very intelligent.

And his mind was always working.

He had ways that he felt
that things should be done.

Jim was definitely an individual.

In running, he was the best.

He always finished first.

But one of the things
Jim always said is

you have to be different.

And if he couldn't finish first,
he would finish last.

The jingle bells that
you'd see on packages

he would wear those on his shoes.

He wore his hair long
during the track season

and then one day he would show up
and he'd have a crew cut.

And it was just constantly

don't get comfortable with Jim
because he's going to change it.

He was adamant too about
wanting to go to college.

I could just start listing every
college that had a track program...

and I bet they wrote him.

And he knew he was going somewhere
where if they didn't have mountains

you could see them.
That was important to him.

And he chose Wyoming for that reason.

Coach, last year last
in the conferences

this year you come in third
in the nation.

What's the difference?

Well, we got a very good
recruiting year.

And of course this is only
my second season...

at the University of Wyoming

and so we went out and...

recruited very well this summer

and that's the difference.

Wyoming had, at that time,
some pretty good athletes...

that were on the Kenyan Olympic team

and they were excellent runners...

but he wasn't the least bit
intimidated by them.

He was in that class.

Here we were, this group of...

highly accomplished US athletes

and these Kenyan athletes...

showed up that first day

some who had been
in the Olympics before

many who would go on
to win national titles.

All of a sudden,
it was re-defined...

who the best athletes
on the team were.

There was a lot of discussion
amongst the team about...

how it was patently unfair...

that the Kenyan athletes
were much older than us

twenty-eight years old
when they were freshman.

And now the NCAA has
passed rules against that

so you can't be that old and compete.

But at that time,
it was not uncommon.

It was a bit of
a love-hate relationship.

It's great to have
the foreign athletes on the team...

because the team did so well.

But at the same time, he was,
that year

the fifth best runner on the team,
not the best.

Kilili of Wyoming

a pre-race favorite

continued to increase his lead...

as the rest of the pack was...

strung out further and further...

along the course.

What about the individual runners
on your team?

Did they perform about as well as
you had expected?

Down the line, our fifth man
was back much further...

than I expected him to be.

He slipped a little bit today too.

He was a runner, first and foremost.
That was his identity.

To be a distance runner

you have to be a con man
and a liar to yourself.

You have to convince yourself...

that you're not hurting
when you know you're hurting

and you have con yourself into
running five more miles...

when you want to quit right now.

The way he reacted to it was...

to begin to train very hard
and very diligently.

So what he was trying to do was,
and you could see it

he went through some
extreme work-outs...

in order to try to compete
at that level.

Jim did not want anyone
to know his weaknesses ever.

Never once did I hear him tell me...

that he thought
he was outmatched in college

that he couldn't compete
at that level.

I'm sure he thought
he was the best there was

that he was capable of anything.

So maybe he went back to college
to show that, you know

I could have, should have

and kind of re-live the glory days
of running, again.

To go back and have people say,
hey man, look at that guy.

He's a good runner.

He's special. He's gifted.

He's different.

Nobody else ran the times
that Jim ran...

when he was on the track
at Princeton.

Jim Hogue ran those times.

Jim Hogue beat those boys
on the track.

Hey Jim took all the entrance exams.

He didn't send someone else
in the room to take those exams.

He took the exams.

He did all the class work.

He got all the accolades in school.

He got the offers to...

be one of the boys
in the club there too.

And that was Jim Hogue.

And why he picked Princeton?

I don't know. You decide.

He'll tell you.

In his applications
to Princeton University

he claimed to be
Alexi Indris Santana.

He indicated in his
application that...

the had never attended school...

after the year of 1979.

That his mother, a sculptress
by the name of Susan Vindriska

lived in Switzerland.

That his father, a potter named
Oscar Carlos Santana, was deceased.

He claimed to have been
born in California

and asserted that
he was self-educated.

In fact, your honor

Mr. Hogue graduated from
Washington High School.

What he did was
a violation of the law.

Lying as part of your application
to Princeton is not acceptable.

Ever.

Big lie, small lie.
It's not okay.

Princeton was adamant.
They wanted him out.

They got duped.
They got conned.

They got taken.
And they didn't like it.

The only course of action

from the standpoint
of the institution

since this young man had...

applied to Princeton
under utterly false pretenses

was to declare the admission
null and void.

And from Princeton's standpoint

the fact that his admission
was declared null and void...

means that he was
never a student there.

I spoke to some of his professors

and they were incredibly
supportive of him.

I mean, he was a good student.

He really wanted to graduate
from Princeton University.

I just got the sense that...

this was the life
that he wanted to have

or this was the life
that he dreamed of.

I always thought, if that's
what he wanted to do

the dumbest thing he could have done
was to run track

When you're good in something,
somebody's going to find out.

But I think he probably loved to run.

And he couldn't stop himself.

We have an individual...

who has absolutely no ties to
our community.

We also have an individual who has...

demonstrated a propensity
to deny and conceal his past.

The only ties he had...

were as a student
at Princeton University...

and of course
those ties are now severed.

I couldn't conceive of the judge
giving him any time.

That was a miscalculation on my part.

My father and I were involved in
a fencing operation.

We'd buy stolen property...

and re-sell it.

And I was convicted,
and I got sentenced...

and I went to the Mercer County
Correctional Center.

And that's where I met Jim Hogue.

When I first saw Jim,
it was surprising...

that somebody from Princeton
would be in a jail like that.

And as smart as he was, he didn't
have any problems with any inmates.

He kept to himself.

It looked like he was
in his own little world.

It wasn't like he was even in jail.

He was just doing his time
in another world.

He'd be on the top bunk

and he'd put a blanket over his head,
and he'd just be reading.

That's probably...

what he would do most of the day.

Here's some of the books
Jim used to read.

Engineering book.

Whatever that is.

Geophysical Inverse Theory.

If you know what that is,
let me know.

Life in Moving Fluids.

Quantum Field Theory.

Some good reading here.

Jim used to talk about this,
Mineral Lands and Mining.

About staking a claim in Colorado
for some property

and he was going to
build a log cabin there.

Jim, he brought him around.

Where did you bring from?

- From jail.
- From jail.

He come around. I don't know.

He come out of nowhere.

He was OK though.

He was good with us,
he wouldn't con us.

We'd break his legs.

He was no dummy.

He was smart.

He got over on them out at Princeton.

They didn't like that at all.

Made them look like jerks there.

They know everything out there,
them blue bloods.

Here it is: Princeton University.

It's Lonely at the Top.

He was a man of Princeton.

There was something different
about him.

I couldn't pinpoint him.

I usually can pinpoint everything
with everybody.

But he was different.

I couldn't make him out.

I never understood him.

I just never understood it.

I mean I understood what he did.
I didn't understand why he did it.

He was such a smart person.

He could have got a degree anywhere.

My picture of Jim has always been
this lonely person who might be...

living on the top of a mountain
somewhere, reading books.

But I don't know if that's him.

I had spent nearly a year
and a half investigating Hogue...

and reached a dead end.

The strange course of his life
was no longer a mystery to me

but one piece of the puzzle
was still missing.

Hogue had always refused to
speak publicly about his deceptions

and had disappeared
after leaving prison in 1997.

I wonder, when he
does these things

if he knows by now how
they always end.

Or, I wonder if, the fact that...

you don't know where he is today
and I don't know where he is today

means maybe...

it doesn't always
end the same way for him.

A, he's changed, or B,
he's gotten much better at it.

I've spoken with his mother and she
apparently doesn't know where he is.

Hogue's mother, who still
lives in Kansas City

refused to speak with me.

Even Hogue's sister,
who declined to appear on camera

had no idea where he was.

I actually haven't spoken to him
in probably seven or eight years.

Do you know where my brother is now?

Jason Cole, the reporter
from Palo Alto

even suspected that I was Hogue.

You really are James Hogue.

Why are you doing this?

My heart is racing

being just in the same room
with you.

I don't know if this is
your way of getting revenge.

It's a good way to do it.

Cole had desperately wanted
to speak with the real Hogue

and so did I.

After leaving prison, Hogue had
continued to use his real name

and I was able to trace him to
this apartment complex...

in Aspen, Colorado.

Hey, I'm sorry to bother you.

I was looking for someone
named Jim Hogue.

- Does he live here?
- No.

High in the hills above Aspen

I met a woman who had
rented a room to Hogue

but she refused to appear on camera.

He is sick.

He's basically, basically very sick
and very vengeful.

I don't even want to have my name
associated with him, he's that bad.

Later that day, I got a message
from Hogue's friend, Sara Avery.

Hello Jesse, you've called me

trying to get a hold of Jim Hogue,
about a week ago.

I'm calling to find out
if you can give me any information...

about what you were trying to
reach him about.

She gave my number to Hogue
and Hogue called me.

You made quite an effort, I guess.

You showed up at Aspen anyway.

That must have been quite an ordeal.

I guess I've had probably...

plenty of opportunities
to tell the story.

I don't know what it is
you wanted me to do exactly.

Well, I'd like to come out there
and, you know, meet with you.

A few months later,
Hogue agreed to travel with me...

to the land he owns
in Southern Colorado.

But asked that I not reveal
its exact location.

It was the first time he had agreed
to appear on camera.

Hogue is still a drifter.

He moves from town to town...

and does construction work
to earn a living.

He keeps his possessions in
a storage shed.

I don't have any neighbors
for twenty miles almost.

Yeah.

It's pretty quiet.

Well, originally I thought
I might put up a little shack here...

and stay a few weeks,
a year or something.

I don't know that...

very many people are
completely satisfied...

with their position.

So, people invent things
about themselves all the time.

And I don't think
that's any mystery at all.

What you think you know is...

not what is real.

I think that people want known

what they want to have known.

They're not ever going to be able to
reveal everything about themselves.

It doesn't matter
how many masks you have because...

there is something stable,
that's really you.

And you are the only one
who knows that.

That is the only reality that's true
is what you have inside of yourself.

If I were a drug addict
or whatever out there

there would have been
a million psychiatrists

or whatever, you know.

Or if I were an alcoholic

there would have been endless

tedious AA meetings or whatever.

But...

- But what?
- But what?

But there's not.

Because...

this is a different form
of addiction, I guess, whatever.

This is not a recognized...

It's not a recognized what?

It's not recognized as being
deserving of whatever they think

drug addiction is deserving of having

a remedy for.

What is it?

The way I behave.

Having a different moral standard,
or different moral action than...

what's recognized as the correct one.

A year after our first meeting

Hogue agreed to return to
the Princeton campus.

He has been declared
officially unwelcome

and was concerned about
being recognized.

It was like being in a play.

I was a character.

The character's name
was Alexi Santana.

I thought that
the way that I played my role...

would cause other people to
play their role in a certain way.

They fell into the

little psychological traps
that I'd created.

It's all smoke and shadows.

You want to create
a psychological buffer...

between your real self
and the character that you're doing

and you want to create a mood
to make that character believable.

He would allow you to create him.

He didn't want to create
his own personality.

He wanted you to create it for him.

And as a result

he allowed people to project on him
what they wanted.

More than anything,
that was really his brilliance.

I never felt betrayed.

It was more...

kind of fascination, like

this guy is so much
smarter than I am...

that he must just have been
living in fear.

And, you just realize
he was in a place...

that you could never imagine
even having been.

It's a

mounting sense of guilt...

because it's not just
the first set of stories

it's the first set of stories
plus every story after that.

Every day.

If you assign a certain amount
of guilt to each lie you've told

it can be oppressive.

You can

think that ok, I just need to last
a certain amount of time more.

If I can just do that,
it won't matter.

And the problem is, one slip

can never be taken back.

Does that place feel lonely to you?

No. It doesn't feel lonely
to me at all.

I mean, you can see the lights
of the cities.

You can see Colorado Springs and

Sante Fe.

I wish it were more isolated
than it is.

It's a little disappointing.

You can't grasp

what I was feeling or thinking.

I can't put it into words
to make you see.

It's indescribable.

I mean, I can't describe
the indescribable.