Leaving Colorado, Hogue returned to California, where in 1987 police said he stole $20,000 in bicycles and bicycle equipment--from his roommate's store. Police soon caught up with the lubricious Hogue in St. George, Utah, where along with the stolen property, they found a substantial amount of correspondence with Ivy League universities, including Harvard, Yale, Brown and Princeton, conducted under the alias Alexi Indris-Santana.

After his arrest in early 1988 for the bicycle thefts, Hogue received his acceptance from Princeton. But Hogue must have realized that he would have to serve at least one year of his five-year larceny sentence back in Utah. He applied for a one-year deferment, claiming this time that he needed to care for his mother, whom he said was dying of leukemia in Switzerland. Evidently, Hogue's fictitious mother had risen from her Bolivian grave only to travel to Europe and contract cancer.

Hogue's request for a deferment was approved, and he broke his parole, granted after one year of his sentence, to travel to the New Jersey school. There, he succeeded in bilking Princeton of nearly $22,000. After he was arrested for breaking parole, defrauding the university and several other charges, he served nine months at the Mercer County Detention Center in New Jersey.

But the felon who defrauded Princeton of $22,000 was never extradited to Utah. Hogue was set free last year. Arriving in Cambridge, he enrolled at Harvard's Extension School--this time under what police believe is his real name, James Arthur Hogue.

The same name appears on the mailbox of Apartment One at 82 Marion St. in Somerville.

"We got an anonymous tip that this gentleman had a shady background and based on that information we began doing an investigation," Lt. Rooney said of the probe which eventually led Harvard detectives to Hogue's residence.

According to Associate Curator of the Mineralogical Museum Carl A. Francis, Hogue worked at the Museum as a cataloger, and it was through his work that Hogue gained access to the gems, stored in the museum's archive.

"In the course of his employment with the museum, Hogue had free access to the property stored in the museum's archive," said Detective Mederos, the arresting officer.

But his work in the museum was not Hogue's first exposure to rocks and minerals. He was arrested at Princeton while participating in a geology lab, and had enrolled in at least one course on rocks and minerals at Harvard's Extension School.

Harvard Professor of Mineralogy Charles W. Burnham said Hogue was auditing his class, Earth and Planetary Sciences 50, "Materials of the Earth's Crust," last semester.

Burnham said that in the course of Hogue's work for the class, which included one laboratory or field trip each week, Hogue examined rocks from the Mineralogy Museum's collection.

But Burnham also said he did not have a sense of what kind of student James Arthur Hogue was.

As for Hogue, who remains in Cambridge city jail, the future remains uncertain, according to Jill Reilly, spokesperson for the Middle-sex County District Attorney's office.

After a pre-trial conference Friday, Hogue's case was transferred from Somerville courts to Cambridge Third District Court, Reilly said. Hogue is being represented by two public defense attorneys from the Committee for Public Council Services, she said.

Hogue has another pre-trail conference scheduled for this Friday, but according to Reilly that meeting may never come to pass.