Man poses as a teenager at school

A 21-year-old man with a criminal record has been accused of posing as a teenager, enrolling in a school in the US, and playing in a football league for five to 14-year-olds. Julious Threatts has been charged with one count of trespassing on school grounds, and one count of "obstruction by disguised person" and violation of probation in Florida.

Threatts played in a season opening game in the Tampa Bay Youth Football League after allegedly turning in a birth certificate, registration form and a guardian's signature to the league stating he was just 14. But league officials now believe he faked all the documentation.

The authorities were tipped off to the fraud by a phone call from the West Coast Children's Football League - where Threatts had also allegedly played ball. "Obviously it was a well-thought out plot, because he's done it to other leagues, previously," Scott Levinson, Tampa Bay Youth Football League president, said.

Coaches say Threatts convinced them and other players he was a teenager - and even his athletic ability failed to give him away, they said. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Threatts had enrolled in Webb Middle School as 14-year-old Chad Johnson. The motive for Threatts offending was not clear, authorities said, but he was being held in the Hillsborough County Jail on no bond.