Neil Havens Rodreick II. (AP Photo/Yavapai County Sheriff)
Myers talks about covering such an unusual and sensitive story.

Accept this unscientific claim: Kids today look and act older than they really are.

With that in mind, it still would be difficult to explain how a 29-year-old sex offender could pose as a 12-year-old boy AND attend middle school for months before being caught.

But that is apparently what happened in Arizona.

Neil Havens Rodreick II, a convicted sex offender, enrolled at several schools in the suburbs of Phoenix. He was finally caught after spending a day as a seventh-grader at a charter school in Chino Valley, where his fake-looking birth certificate tipped off school officials.

Rodreick has been charged with misdemeanor assault, conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit forgery, failing to register as a sex offender and possession of a forgery device. Officials also said they found a videotape showing Rodreick engaged in a sex act with a child.

He was enrolled at one school for 50 days, doing his homework and staying out of trouble. He was expelled -- for poor attendance.

"Parents, teachers, other students just treated him like another 12-year-old. So apparently he was pretty convincing," said Amanda Lee Myers, an AP reporter in Phoenix who has been covering the story.

The web of deception doesn't end in the schoolyard.

Rodreick moved from Oklahoma to Arizona with two older men, 61-year-old Lonnie Stiffler and 43-year-old Robert James Snow. Rodreick met the men online, convinced them he was a preteen and then entered into a sexual relationship with them. Stiffler called himself Rodreick's grandfather when he tried to enroll him in the Chino Valley school as "Casey Price."

The two men were charged with attempted child molestation and attempted sexual contact with a minor.

A fourth man, Brian J. Nellis, 34, was also arrested at the house. He and Rodreick met in prison while they were serving time for sex offenses, Myers said. In 1996, Rodreick was convicted of making a lewd and indecent proposal to a minor in Oklahoma.

asap's HOWIE RUMBERG asked Myers to explain the bizarre case. Here's what she had to say.

How did Rodreick pass for a 12-year-old boy?

Myers: He's actually 5-foot-6, 120 pounds. That's what it says in one of the reports. But officials at one school said he was wearing makeup -- pretty heavy makeup -- and that he shaved his body hair and acted like a child. At another school they said he blended in so well nobody suspected a thing.

What did he even bother registering at school?

Myers: There hasn't been an official explanation; authorities haven't said if he said anything about that or if any other students have any ideas about that. They suspect that it could be to get closer to children to molest them or abuse them in some sort of way. But other people say he might not have touched any students, that just being there around children may have fulfilled some fantasy for him.

Could it have been part of a ruse to convince the older men that he was 12?

Myers: Absolutely. That's another possibility.

Why did he do his homework?

Myers: That could have just been part of the way to stay in school, just to appear as an average student who did their homework, showed up in the morning just to blend in -- rather than stick out and get a talking-to maybe from the teacher.

How do the authorities justify the charges against the older men?

Myers: They justify the charge because they say the two men believed they were having sex with a 12-year-old. In interviews with the police they said that when they told the two men that he was 29 they were shocked and angry. So they had thought they were having sex with a 12-year-old.

They pretty much admitted that they didn't know his age and that they wanted him to be 12 years old.

He was charged with assaulting a girl?

Myers: It's not clear what that assault is. They're not saying sexual assault.

Right now the police are interviewing students that he might have hung out with, parents and teachers. Just to make sure there are no victims. Although one FBI investigator I talked to said that even if there are it would be pretty difficult to get them to come forward, particularly if they are boys.

A 12-year-old boy who might've thought Rodreick was a 12-year-old boy -- Rodreick might not have needed a weapon or anything. The investigator's thinking is that would be an embarrassing admission and that if there are 12-year-old boys who did anything with him they might be really hesitant to come forward -- especially with all the coverage of it as well.

Howie Rumberg is an asap reporter based in New York.

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