Look, if you're going to pretend to be in high school when you're really a man in his 20's, there are some things you just don't do: play sports with an unfair physical advantage, date 15-year-olds, or get caught.
Former Fort Lauderdale Dillard basketball standout Guerdwich Montimere failed on all three counts, and now faces a sexual assault charge in Odessa, Texas, for having sex with a Permian High School classmate there last summer.
When it was discovered that Montimere was really 22 -- and named Guerdwich Montimere -- a 16-year-old student told police she and Montimere consumated a relationship in August, when she was 15 and thought Montimere was, too.
Police determined Montimere "intentionally and knowingly engaging in a sexual relationship with a... juvenile" and added a second-degree felony charge to his collection of legal troubles. If convicted, he faces a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Montimere was arrested Tuesday after school when authorities, tipped off by Boyd Anderson Assistant coach Cedric Smith and South Florida Elite coach Louis Vives, conducted an investigation into his identity.
The two men spotted the 2007 Dillard graduate playing under the name "Jerry Joseph" for a Texas team at an April tournament in Arkansas.
"We saw him. We've known Guerdwich since he was in seventh or eighth grade," Smith told the Sun-Sentinel last week. "The mannerisms were him."
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Montimere used a fake Haitian birth certificate to enroll in Odessa as a 15-year-old in February 2009, and even began living with Permian's basketball coach, Danny Wright, after lying about being a homeless orphan. He is charged with presenting false identification to a peace officer and tampering with governmental records, the latter a third-degree felony.
"We really did not see him with a girl in that way in the halls or anything like that," Permian High School Principal Roy Garcia told the Sun-Sentinel. "But after everything came out, we did check. During our check, someone came forward and we let the police know."
Officials at the Odessa church he attended said Montimere never pursued any girls there, and his high school coach said he never brought any dates home.
"I wish I could hug him," said Wright, who says he has received apologetic text messages from Montimere though the two have not talked. "I love him. I hate to think what state of mind the kid has been in to erase his past and live a totally different life."
