Woman Who Posed As Abandoned Boy Given 1-Year Term

A 25-year-old woman who posed as a boy and told social workers she had been abandoned by her family pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to a year in jail.

“I swear as God is my witness that I did not mean for this to happen the way it did,” a tearful Birdie Jo Hoaks told the judge.

“I was simply looking for a place to stay.”

Hoaks, of San Jose, Calif., told Utah state workers she was a 13-year-old boy whose stepmother and father had left him at a bus stop a week before Christmas because they could no longer care for him.

After the story was publicized, people across the country offered money, gifts and even their homes before Vermont officials alerted Utah authorities of the possible deception.

Hoaks entered guilty pleas to charges of theft of services and making a false written statement. Judge Robert K. Hilder sentenced her to one year on one count and six months on the other, to run concurrently, and ordered her to pay $580 restitution.

Hoaks told the judge she had misrepresented herself to receive welfare benefits in South Dakota, Montana and Vermont. Authorities believe Hoaks was involved in similar incidents in at least 11 states.