A 28-year-old woman was arrested, along with her mother, after she posed as a 17-year-old student at a Louisiana high school by using a false identification, authorities said.
Martha Jessenia Gutierrez-Serrano, 28, and her mother, Marta Elizeth Serrano-Alvarado, 46, were arrested Tuesday morning and charged with “injuring public records,” the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
St. Charles Parish Public Schools notified the sheriff’s office on May 29 about a possible adult’s attending Hahnville High School in Boutte in the 2022-23 school year. Boutte is about 30 miles west of New Orleans.
The school had received a tip that a female student, listed as 17 in school records, was “in fact an adult possibly in her mid 20’s,” the release said.
After an internal investigation, school officials notified the sheriff’s office about the findings.
The investigation found that Serrano-Alvarado had enrolled her 28-year-old daughter in the school using a fraudulent passport and birth certificate, officials said.
It’s not clear why Gutierrez-Serrano would have been enrolled or how long she would have attended the school.
The school district said in a statement obtained by NBC affiliate WDSU of New Orleans that it “will enhance processes to determine the authenticity of enrollment documents for current and future students as well as modify policy and procedures as warranted.”
Anyone with information related to the investigation is asked to contact the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Neither Gutierrez-Serrano nor her mother could immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.