The 32-year-old woman accused of pretending to be a Boston Public Schools student appeared in court for a brief hearing on Tuesday morning.
Shelby Hewitt, of Canton, has pleaded not guilty to charges including forgery and identity fraud. Court documents show she posed as a student from 2021 through 2023 while working for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.
Her lawyer says Hewitt has a history of mental illness.
Hewitt's hearing on Tuesday mostly consisted of attorneys having a discussion at sidebar, and resulted in the case being continued until Oct. 22.
Several recent hearings in the case have been delayed after her attorney was seriously injured in an accident and because Hewitt was at a treatment facility out of state.
At her last hearing on Aug. 28, a new court date was set for Tuesday, and the judge said Hewitt would be required to attend.
A Boston public student who went to school with Shelby was at the courthouse with her mother for the August hearing and said they were disappointed by the continued delays in the case.
"I'm still waiting for answers from BPS because I feel like they're not doing anything about the situation, and I also just feel like they’re playing games," said Janell Lamons.
"We are the victims, not her. She's the person who pretended to be a student 16, 13 years old sitting among our children," said Robin Williams, Janell's mother.
Hewitt's lawyer, Timothy Flaherty, has hired a psychiatric expert, and an evaluation is reportedly ongoing. The court date was pushed back to allow the evaluation to be finished.
Prosecutors have said previously that they believed the case might be headed toward resolution, but it is not known if a change of plea could happen on Tuesday.
Hewitt was indicted on nine charges in Suffolk Superior Court last year, where new details emerged around how she allegedly pretended to be a traumatized child with significant special educational and emotional needs.
She faces three counts of forgery, two counts of forgery at common law, one count of uttering, one count of identity fraud, one count of larceny over $1,200 and one count of making false claims to her employer. The indictment alleges that between Dec. 6, 2021 and Feb. 3, 2023, the social worker carried out an elaborate scheme to convince the Boston Public School system and the state that she was a child as young as 13 while working for DCF.
Hewitt bought the domain name @masstate.us and used it to create two fake DCF workers with phony email addresses and phone numbers in December 2021. She then used an alias and the real identity of a child in state custody to enroll herself in the Walden Behavioral Treatment Center for an eating disorder and three different Boston Public Schools, where she received special education services. All while collecting her $54,000 salary from the state.
The deception came to light in June of 2023 when a man came to English High School, claiming he was withdrawing Hewitt, who he said was his daughter, over bullying. The school discovered an error in her paperwork and notified police. Police later searched an apartment in Jamaica Plain and found evidence of forged comments.
Hewitt was released following her arraignment on $5,000 cash bail and ordered to stay away from the stolen identity victim, any witnesses, any BPS employees, all schools and children under the age of 18. She was also ordered not to engage in the practice of social work.
