Guerdwich Montimere

A West Texas student who led his high school basketball team to the state playoffs last season was actually a 22-year-old man, police said Tuesday.

Police say the basketball star was really Guerdwich Montimere, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti who school officials say was recognized last month by Florida coaches as having been a star high school player in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a few years ago.

Ector County school district officials said the man posed as 16-year-old Jerry Joseph and enrolled at Permian High School in Odessa for the 2009-2010 academic year. He also presented himself as homeless to the school's basketball coach, Danny Wright, who took the boy in last summer, the coach said.

Montimere was arrested at Permian High on Tuesday and booked into Ector County jail on a charge of presenting false identification to a peace officer.

Officials said Jerry Joseph originally enrolled at the local junior high as a 15-year-old in February 2009, then moved on to high school.

Permian High officials say suspicions about the player's identity first arose when three Florida basketball coaches familiar with Montimere recognized him last month at an amateur tournament in Little Rock, Ark. The Odessa American reported that the coaches recognized him as Montimere, who graduated from Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale in 2007.

The revelation means Permian likely will have to forfeit the 2009 basketball season in which the 6-foot-5 player known as Jerry Joseph led the team to District 2-5A state playoffs and earned newcomer of the year accolades.

Permian High School's football program and the community support for it inspired the book Friday Night Lights.