Visits To Stillwater Area High School
The 22 year-old Gardner allegedly visited Stillwater Area High School in Minnesota three times, telling students he was 17-year-old Caspian James Crichton-Stuart IV, 5th Duke of Cleveland and expressing an interest in enrolling in the high school. Assuming an English accent, Gardner reportedly insisted on being called "your Grace", claimed he was 27th in line for the British throne and that he was friends with Prince Harry.
Student journalists with the monthly Pony Express student newspaper became suspicious when he reportedly misspelled the name of the castle he claimed to live in. Their subsequent investigation included a call to the British consulate in Chicago and scouring the internet, both confirming that the Dukedom of Cleveland does not currently exist, having been extinct since 1891. The students then found an entry about "Caspian James Crichton Stuart IV" on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia that had been marked for deletion and were able to derive from the deletion discussion Gardner's real name. Students subsequently found that in 2002 he had been convicted of 4th-degree criminal sexual conduct, a conviction for coercing a 14-year-old girl to have sex.
The school's principal indicated that no problems had been noted resulting from Gardner's visits and that staff members had supervised Gardner's visits to the school.
Read more about this topic: 5th Duke Of Cleveland Hoax
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