Astonishing story of 'millionaire' social worker, 32, who posed as 13 year-old trafficked orphan to attend three high schools and who 'tricked' adult couple into fostering her

A 32-year-old social worker was able to masquerade as a traumatized high schooler for almost a year while keeping up her full-time job as a social worker. 

Shelby Hewitt, also known as 'Ellie Blake', 13, and 'Daniella Blake Herrerra', 16, conned her way into three high schools and a treatment center, even tricking a therapist and her partner into becoming her foster parents. 

Students who bullied her for looking like she was in her 30s - including taunts that 'white cracks early' - were disciplined, even though an investigation found they were right all along. 

The reasons for the alleged fraud are still unclear, as an investigation into her ongoing court case by the Boston Globe saw former classmates and furious parents question how she pulled it off. 

'Why did you do this?' tricked friend Janell Lamons questioned to the outlet. 'I feel betrayed and confused.'

Shelby Hewitt, 32, is accused of masquerading as a troubled teenager for almost a year while working full-time as a social worker. Her motive remains unknown 

Prosecutors say Hewitt conned her way into three high schools and an eating disorder treatment center, even tricking a therapist and her partner into becoming her foster parents 

Hewitt is charged with criminal forgery and identity fraud, and after she pleaded not guilty in December, she is set to stand trial at the end of the year. 

According to prosecutors, she began her elaborate plot by pretending to be troubled 16-year-old Daniella Blake Herrera in mid-2022, shortly after she returned to work at the Department of Children and Families (DCF). 

Graduating with her master's degree in school counseling from the University of Massachusetts, Boston in 2016, she was initially hired by the DCF right out of graduate school on a $50,000 salary. 

She left in 2018, around the same time her mother and maternal grandfather passed away, leaving her with a large inheritance speculated to be as much as $1 million. 

It is unclear what exactly Hewitt was doing for around three years, until prosecutors say she began the fraud in December 2021 by registering an email domain - @masstate.us - intended to look like a legitimate Massachusetts DCF email. 

She then allegedly created emails for two fake social workers who would claim to be working for her - Michael Kornetsky and Michelle Delfi. 

Prosecutor Ashley Polin alleged in court that while 'posing behind the keyboard as one of these DCF workers', Hewitt 'had herself admitted as a child patient at the Walden Behavioral treatment center and enrolled herself in the Boston Public Schools.'  The treatment center helped youngsters with eating disorders, with Hewitt having long-suffered anorexia. 

From there, she quickly began attending classes at Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester, where she stayed for around seven months before transferring to Brighton High for two months. 

Switching to the name Ellie Blake and claiming to be 13, her alleged con unraveled a week after she transferred to English High School in Boston. The scheme was busted after she complained about being bullied by actual-teenagers taunting her for looking like an adult. 

At some point, Hewitt had also purchased a $350,000 apartment, paying for the property in cash rather than needing a mortgage.  

While allegedly pretending to be a high schooler, Hewitt was living in a $350,000 apartment (pictured) she paid for in cash and was working as a full-time social worker 

Hewitt (seen in a court appearance) is charged with criminal forgery and identity fraud, and after she pleaded not guilty in December, she is set to stand trial at the end of the year

The alleged con-artist was said to be an outgoing student, seen during her actual high school days in Sharon, Massachusetts in 2007 

Despite committing to the facade by even having braces put on her teeth, as well as regularly wearing baggy clothes and ponytails to give her a younger look, classmates ridiculed Hewitt for appearing to look more like their parents. 

The school was predominantly black and Hispanic students, who reportedly told Hewitt, 'White cracks early.'  

Posing as fake social worker Michelle Delfi using the bogus Massachusetts state email Hewitt created, she emailed the school's guidance counselor to notify them about the bullying she claimed Ellie was suffering. 

'Elle has a really bad day at school yesterday, cried all evening and doesn’t want to go back,' the message said - with Hewitt allegedly writing about herself in the third person. 

'(Ellie) is really sensitive about people commenting on her face and how she looks older,' Ms. 'Delphi' wrote. 'It's a huge trigger point for her.' 

Delphi said that Ellie suffered from a genetic medical condition that prematurely aged her, and claimed she was a vulnerable victim of child trafficking that now lived with a foster family. 

After school staff worked out a plan for her return, principal Caitlin Murphy realized certain aspects of the troubled student's story didn't add up - most notably, Delphi's email domain didn't match the correct DCF address. 

In an email seen by the Boston Globe, Murphy urgently requested staff members 'look at the documents that Ellie was registered with to be sure that we are confident that there is not something amiss here.'

'Something feels like it’s not adding up,' she wrote. They were later disturbed at being unable to find her birth certificate. 

Claiming that her parents were dead, Hewitt was also able to enroll under a false identity at Walden Behavioral Care, which specializes in eating disorders. 

At some stage, she began living with a social therapist at the center, Rebecca Bernat, and her partner John Smith, seemingly without documentation as the couple now claim they were duped along with everyone else. 

Other classmates also claimed she exhibited strange behavior, including randomly bursting into tears in class and hallways, and driving herself to school while saying her family were so poor they were struggling for food. 

Despite the inconsistencies, classmates said her tragic backstory meant they merely felt sorry for her, as friend Janell Lamons, 15, said: 'Me and my friends felt really bad for her.' 

Tricked friend Janell Lamons, 15, said she had questions over Hewitt's changing stories, but her friends 'felt really bad for her' and didn't probe further. Following Hewitt's arrest, she said she feels 'betrayed' 

Janell's mother Robin Williams said she was stunned at how the alleged con had worked, and 'to find out this 32-year-old is sitting in class with my daughter and other kids, and she jumped to three different schools, it was scary' 

Rebecca Bernat and her partner John Smith took Hewitt into their home as a foster child, and claim that they were duped by her 

Lamons met Hewitt while at Burke High, and introduced her to her friends as the new kid in school that she had empathy for. 

'She said her foster mother didn’t have money and sometimes ran out of food,' she said, adding that Hewitt also occasionally slipped up and altered her story. 

Following Hewitt's arrest in June 2023, Lamons' mother Robin Williams said she was stunned at how the alleged con had worked, as the case still leaves more questions than answers. 

'To find out this 32-year-old is sitting in class with my daughter and other kids, and she jumped to three different schools, it was scary,' she told the Boston Globe. 

Before she was foiled, Hewitt maintained the facade by playing on the girls' basketball team, gossiping with friends half her age, and handing in homework - all while still working as a DCF social worker full-time. 

Insiders claimed to the outlet that while surprising, flaws in the system mean some social workers can skate by doing the bare minimum, helped by the fact that families under DCF supervision 'don’t want to see you, so they are not going to complain.' 

Friends from college also recall seeing Hewitt shortly before her arrest, where they said nothing appeared out of the ordinary, except for the braces she had fitted to her teeth. 

Bernat and Smith say they were unaware of her double life, and Smith was reportedly known to routinely show up to support his foster daughter at high school basketball games. 

Hewitt (seen in court) was said to have pulled off the con through flaws in education and child protective services 

Hewitt spend the majority of her time at Jeremiah E. Burke High School (pictured), but also worked her way into two other high schools and a treatment center 

However, Hewitt's house of cards came down on June 14, 2023, when Principal Murphy noticed that not only did the email domain not match DCF, but a letter supposedly from the body had a typo in its logo, noting it was from the 'Department of Children rind Families.' 

The school called DCF to speak with Delphi about the mysterious case, only to be told that nobody with that name worked there. 

Due to flaws in the enrollment system and staff wanting to help a seemingly helpless teenager, Murphy found they didn't possess basic paperwork, including a birth certificate. 

'I assumed we had some sort of information from DCF regarding the arrangement with the foster parents — we’ve had no reason to doubt anyone calling before,' she wrote in an email to staff at the time. 

'But in retrospect we should have asked for some formal paperwork.' 

Hewitt was promptly questioned by police, and she initially claimed Delphi was forging documents to encourage Bernat to take her into foster care. 

Bernat was later fired from her role as a social worker for failing to go through the proper channels in taking who she thought was a troubled teen into her home, but maintains that she and her partner were also victims. 

'The criminal defendant deceived and victimized John Smith and Rebecca Bernat,' their attorneys told the Globe. 'John and Rebecca are among numerous people who genuinely believed a desperate young person was in need.' 

Hewitt reportedly later confessed to the con, as the outlet says she responded to a request for comment in a phone call by telling a reporter that 'there is a reason' she pretended to be a teen, but her attorneys told her to stay quiet during her ongoing case. 

She said the truth 'will come out in time' - but until then, the 32-year-old's motivation for the alleged year-long con remains a mystery.