U.S. marshals on Thursday arrested Aris Lamont Hines, 37, and Brandi Kauilani Thomason, 33, on two felony counts each of obtaining property by false pretense and common law obstruction of justice.

The charges stem from allegations that the Alamance County couple used fraudulent documents to enroll 15-year-old Jonathan Kingsley at Woodlawn Middle School and subsequently Eastern Alamance High to play soccer, basketball and football.

Charges against the two involve misuse of an international student visa and involve 23 students in two North Carolina counties.

A high school freshman, Kingsley has already been recruited by 16 colleges. The football and basketball teams Kingsley played on at Eastern Alamance finished as state semifinalists this year, only to be fined and stripped of the wins once allegations reported to the N.C. High School Athletic Association were substantiated.

At a news conference Tuesday, Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson said the phone call reporting that Kingsley was in the country illegally came not from a rival but from Hines, Kingsley’s guardian, who Johnson said threatened school officials.

Eastern Alamance was subsequently ordered to repay $19,000 in playoff gate receipts, and its winning record was wiped out —14 football and 14 basketball wins.

“The student did nothing wrong in this situation,” said Kirk Puckett, a spokesman for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office.

The investigation

Investigators have said they learned that Kingsley moved to the United States from Nigeria on the promise from Hines and Thomason of a better education and the opportunity to play football.

Investigators haven’t publicly named Kingsley but said the student is a football and basketball player at Eastern Alamance, attended Woodlawn and immigrated from Nigeria to America. Kingsley matches that criteria and has been identified in previous reporting that names Hines as his guardian. He is listed by the initials J.K. in court documents and in Hines’ arrest warrant.

The Nigerian teen is now living with a teammate’s family in Mebane, with the approval of his father and child welfare authorities.

Sheriff’s investigators said that the group of 23 students includes at least three female teens, who are now missing, who are thought to have been under Hines’ care. Deputies also have yet to locate two other teenagers.

“Our agency will not stop until we locate the three girls we know exist, who were trying to be registered in Alamance-Burlington school system, and have since evaporated from Alamance County,” Johnson said Tuesday.

Investigators said Hines housed at least five of the students, between the ages of 14 and 18, at a house in Mebane without adult supervision.

Kingsley lived at the Mebane house, but investigators did not identify the other residents or say whether the group included males and females.

The sheriff’s office, the State Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, the U.S. State Department, the State Board of Elections and the Robeson County district attorney have begun investigations into Hines and Thomason’s alleged conduct. Most stem from the treatment and whereabouts of the students. Robeson County’s involvement stems from allegations of voter fraud in 2013.

Eastern Alamance

Johnson said the high school’s head football coach, John Kirby, noticed something was wrong when Kingsley began staying with a teammate’s family frequently and eventually refused to go home. About that same time, Kirby started getting threats.

“Hines waits until the football and basketball seasons are over and calls the coach and threatens the coach, ‘I will destroy your career, threaten your career, do whatever I need to do,’ ” Johnson said. “Basically the coach and the family has taken (Hines’) cash cow, and I don’t mean that derogatory.”

Kirby reported the threat to school administrators, and school officials began to investigate.

Sheriff’s investigators were told Thomason registered Kingsley for middle school the year before, which automatically registered the student for high school a year later. On April 15, school authorities discovered that the guardianship paperwork was notarized but not signed by a judge, and that Kingsley’s visa had expired. The terms of the visa said Kingsley would attend Evelyn Mack Academy in Charlotte.

Neither Eastern Alamance, sheriff’s investigators nor the News & Record have been able to obtain details about Evelyn Mack Academy. The N.C. Department of Non-Public Education’s website lists it as a school with 29 students enrolled.

Early Tuesday, the school’s website had a photo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as its background image. By evening, the image had been removed.

A person who answered the phone number listed for the school would not say whether classes were being held. A woman promised someone would return the call, but that message was not immediately returned.

Johnson said investigators have determined that Kingsley did not attend the school.

Missing teens and human trafficking

Johnson said investigators were alarmed to learn that Hines tried to enroll the three, now missing, female students at Eastern Alamance using documents school system officials flagged as suspect.

Hines and Thomason claimed ignorance when questioned.

“They denied any knowledge whatsoever of attempting to register three females in the Alamance-Burlington school system,” Johnson said. “This causes me grave concern for these three ladies.”

A school staff member told investigators that Hines was accompanied by a plump 14- or 15-year-old girl at the school. Johnson said the teenager was a native of the Dominican Republic but the school official remembers little else.

“There is someone in these countries who are shipping kids in these other countries to this individual, and that’s a common denominator in human trafficking,” Johnson said.

He said he believes that Hines lured teenagers to America with the promise of a better education and that their parents agreed.

“This is definitely a bigger ring,” Johnson said. “I think it stretches all the way to Charlotte and from Charlotte to overseas.”

Johnson said Alamance County has not charged either Hines or Thomason with human trafficking because the State Department is also investigating allegations.

Possible voting fraud

Erich Hackney, an investigator with the Robeson County District Attorney’s Office,learned about Johnson’s planned news conference from media reports.

On Tuesday morning, he called the sheriff to add another charge to the list.

“Basically, the North Carolina Board of Elections requested a voter fraud investigation,” Hackney said. “From that, Mr. Hines came on our radar in respect to 18 students he had taken to the local board of elections in an effort to vote.”

In Pembroke, a small town in Robeson County, candidates win or lose by sometimes tiny margins.

“The candidates finish so close that these teens could have thrown the election,” Hackney said.

He said candidates were standing at an early-voting stop and noticed two vans with nine passengers in each pull up.

As the candidates watched, the first nine students got out of the van and went inside to vote. When they came back out, one candidate accused the students of not being residents and not eligible to vote. The second van of students took off.

Hackney would not identify the candidate who stopped the students.

“As a result ... the nine students were sent subpoenas to question the legitimacy of their residence,” he said.

The students came to the hearings, but once Hines saw what was happening, they took off, Hackney said.

“They left Robeson County and went to Alamance,” he said

Hackney said the nine students who voted were identified, but the other nine are unknown.

He wouldn’t say whether the investigation into the student voters includes the involvement of a candidate. He said the focus is to identify who wasn’t permitted to vote during that election.

Hackney said the 18 students in Robeson County came from across the country.

“They were brought here under false pretense with the promise of education, to graduate high school or get a GED and then offered admission to college- or university-level sports to enhance the package.”

Hackney said one of the students paid Hines $3,500 for an education at a local Christian high school and was charged $250 a month to live with the other 17 students in a house in the county. That student received 11/2 hours of academic study online.

Bail reduced and paid

In Alamance County, Johnson and District Attorney Pat Nadolski asked a magistrate to set Hines and Thomason’s initial bail at $3 million each.

On Monday, bail was reduced to $10,000 each.

Johnson said he still fears for Kingsley’s safety and for the safety of Kingsley’s guardians. He said he also believes the couple might be a flight risk.

Hines and Thomason, both employees of Sonic Drive-In, moved from Oklahoma to North Carolina and at some point lived in West Virginia.

The two are engaged to be married. Alamance County sheriff’s Capt. Jackie Fortner said his investigation indicates they’ve been engaged for 10 years.

Johnson said Hines has a daughter and Thomason told authorities she cares for an infant nephew.

Both Hines and Thomason made bail at 9 p.m. Monday.

Their next court date is set for June 1.