Theft. Fraud. Breaking Parole. Using Aliases. Impersonation. Forgery. James Arthur Hogue Appears To Have Made...

SOMERVILLE--Police and law enforcement officials say it should come as no surprise that many residents interviewed here on Marion St. say they've never heard of James Arthur Hogue, who lived here in Apartment One.

Already a convicted felon before he arrived at Harvard last year, Hogue, 33, was arrested two weeks ago today for allegedly stealing between $50,000 and $100,000 in precious gems from the Harvard Mineralogical Museum.

Despite a tireless effort by police to piece together the Extension School student's convoluted and illicit past, to many whom have known and studied him, Hogue remains a mystery.

Two days after Harvard detectives found a cache of precious gems in Hogue's apartment, Lt. John F. Rooney, Detective Richard Mederos, Detective Paul Westlund and Sergeant Kathleen Stanford were still working to get a complete picture of the man they had arrested.

Moreover, police say the shroud surrounding Hogue's background, aliases and all, may be the creation of an highly imaginative--and criminal--mind.

"As you can see," Rooney said in his office two days after Hogue's arrest, "this gentleman has quite a history."

In his hand Rooney extended a thick stack of press reports of Hogue's previous arrests, aliases and parole records.

Much of the former convicted felon's illicit background--which includes at least four arrests in four different states--remains unclear, Rooney says.

What is known is that as Alexi Indris-Santana, who told admissions officials he was a self-educated son of a goat herder, Hogue was accepted by Princeton University in 1988 and attended the university for at least 18 months between 1989 and 1991.

In February 1991, Princeton Borough police arrested Hogue for defrauding Princeton of nearly $22,000 in financial aid, which together with assuming a false identity and crossing state lines, was a violation of an earlier parole agreement.

It was while preparing for this 1991 arrest that police learned of Hogue's extended history of deceiving authorities.

In 1985, after attending the University of Texas and the University of Wyoming, Hogue, then 25, enrolled at Palo Alto, California High School under not just one, but two aliases, as Riivk Huntsman and Jay Mitchell Huntsman. Claiming his parents were killed in Bolivia, Hogue told officials he was raised on a commune.

But the game was up six weeks later, according to police reports, when Hogue's deception was discovered and the impostor expelled.

Check forgery was Hogue's next gambit. In 1986, he was arrested in Palo Alto for writing false checks, but according to police reports, charges against him were dropped. Later that year, Hogue resurfaced in Vail, Co. posing as Stanford Ph.D. and bioengineer Dr. James Hogue.