STILLWATER, Minn. — Skeptical journalism students at Stillwater Area High School helped unmask a convicted sex offender pretending to be a jet-setting, teenage member of British royalty who wanted to enroll at the school.
The students' sleuthing took them across a range of Web sites, including one where the man claiming to be "Caspian James Crichton-Stuart IV, the Fifth Duke of Cleveland" listed a goal for the year: "to not make the front page of any paper."
That was thwarted by the staff of the Stillwater Pony Express student newspaper.
Their detective work still had "Caspian" scratching his head Thursday evening as he sat in the Winona County Jail.
"I still don't understand how they found out," said Joshua Adam Gardner, 22, of Austin, Minn. "I must have been good enough for them to believe me for so long."
Gardner's charade began around Thanksgiving, when he said he met a student at Stillwater High. Investigators say the two met on the Internet.
Gardner said his alter ego was a product of boredom and attention deficit disorder, a mishmash of fictional characters and real people. "Caspian" was a nickname he'd taken from the popular "Chronicles of Narnia" book series — it's now a movie. Crichton was the last name of author Michael Crichton, and he prolonged a royal lineage he'd read about by making himself the Fifth Earl of Cleveland.
Having lost his mother, suffered abuse and run into trouble with the law, he said, the aspiring actor sought refuge in another character.
"When I'm Caspian, I have no cares," he said.
"I feel I fit the character of Caspian much better than I do Joshua."
He said he never meant any harm.
"I don't think I'm a huge threat," he said. "I wasn't getting any money. . . . Nobody has gotten hurt."
Principal Chris Lennox said Gardner visited the school three times since the beginning of December, arriving with a student at whose house he was staying. The students' parents had confirmed "Caspian" was interested in transferring to Stillwater.
Investigators said Gardner stayed with the family for about two months, though Gardner said he traveled back and forth and was with the family for only a few days.
Gardner spoke in a British accent and spent a few hours at the school, Lennox said. He drew attention — and an interview request from the Pony Express.
"Duke Cleveland" presented a printed business card bearing a crest featuring a lion and a unicorn, and he demanded to be called "His Grace" or "Your Grace." He claimed to live in a castle, with servants at his beck and call, and to know royalty and celebrities, including actor Josh Hartnett and pop singer Jesse McCartney.
Impressive, perhaps — but also suspicious.
"He said that he had partied with Prince Harry and that he knew (actress) Hilary Duff, which, even for royalty, didn't make any sense," said Matt Murphy, a Stillwater Area senior from Lake Elmo who is co-editor-in-chief of the Pony Express, the student paper.
The "duke" claimed to be in the United States for ear surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Murphy said. "He also said he was looking at coming to (Stillwater Area High School) for next year, which didn't make any sense.
"Why would a member of the royal family come to Minnesota to go to school?"
Gardner met with the student journalists in December and again Jan. 6, when they confronted him with questions about his background.
"His accent started to falter, and he became agitated," said co-editor-in-chief Karlee Weinmann.
Added Murphy: "He was noticeably afraid and aggressive, and he refused to show us any ID or documentation."
A letter demanding prior approval of the students' article on the "Duke of Cleveland" contained grammatical errors and misspellings — also raising suspicions.
As students continued their research on the Internet over the weekend, they realized "Caspian" had recently overhauled his profile on the social networking site mySpace.com. Other Web sites listed "Caspian" as the "Earl of Scooby."
Under "Caspian's" entry on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia written by the public, they found the name "Joshua A. Gardner" in parentheses after the entry name.
After visiting another site listing the supposed duke, the students realized he had lied about his age; while he claimed to be 17, the NationMaster.com encyclopedia Web site said he was born in 1983, said Marisa Riley, the paper's managing editor.
As the discrepancies piled up, the students began searching legal sites, including the National Registry of Sex Offenders, Murphy said.
"Because the mySpace site had completely changed, it gave us the idea that he had something to hide," he said.
They found Gardner listed on a sex offender registry for Florida.
Gardner was convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct in Minnesota in 2003 for coercing his 15-year-old girlfriend into having sex with him, Winona County Sheriff David Brand said.
Gardner said the two were going out while he was also a minor, and never knew it was illegal to have sex with her when he turned 18.
Minnesota Department of Corrections spokeswoman Liz McClung said Gardner was listed on the Florida registry because he had moved there at one point and Minnesota officials notified their Florida counterparts of his status in this state.
Students presented their research to newspaper adviser Rachel Steil on Monday morning. She, in turn, turned it over to the Oak Park Heights police liaison officer in the school.
Washington County sheriff's office investigators are looking into whether Gardner had illegal sexual contact with a student and into a report that an unidentified man posed as the impostor's supposed bodyguard, Cmdr. Scott Malinosky said.
Malinosky said investigators have sent information to county prosecutors, who he said could consider charges of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and failing to register as a sex offender. Investigators are interviewing witnesses and may seek search warrants in the probe.
Gardner declined to comment on the allegations.
He was booked into the Mower County Jail in Austin on Monday on suspicion of violating the terms of his supervised release. Brand said he had failed to register changes of address, disregarded an order not to use the Internet, failed to attend sex offender counseling and had unsupervised contact with minors.
He was transferred Thursday evening to the Winona County Jail.
Lennox said Gardner never would have been able to enroll at Stillwater because he would have had to show up with his parents, valid documentation and proof of residency.
Lennox praised his student journalists' investigative skills.
The students plan to go to print with a story on Gardner and Internet safety in the Jan. 26 issue of the monthly Pony Express.
"We're highlighting them," Lennox said. "I'm really proud of them for being skeptical. And I'm proud of (staffers) for taking them seriously. This is an example of the system working."
Gardner said he wonders about that. His stint in Stillwater was "a test of the criminal justice system. I was so easily able to walk into that school. I could have been some psycho, a baby killer out to pick off kids."
He played down his ruse, wondering why it was drawing so much media attention.
"Wasn't it Shakespeare who said, 'All the world is a stage?' " he asked. "Aren't we all in reality just putting on an act?"
He said he still cares about the family he stayed with, and wants to serve out his sentence.
From the jail visiting room, he reflected on his future.
"Maybe when I'm done with this," he said — minus his British accent, "I can go to Hollywood and convince them that I'm someone important on the big screen. I'm obviously good at it."