By Stephanie Clifford

He was a skilled-enough impersonator that he pulled off his scheme for years, talented enough at it that he seemingly could have chosen any identity. A celebrity, or a scholar, perhaps.

But the man had a different goal: He chose to live life as Stephen G. Dickerman, attorney at law — or simply Shlomo, to his clients who went to his office cubicle in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Law enforcement officials say they are not certain who the accused man is; they only know that he is not Mr. Dickerman. The actual Stephen G. Dickerman was a lawyer for more than 40 years, but has not renewed his license since 2008. Court papers say the impostor then used the real Mr. Dickerman’s attorney registration number to set up shop for himself, charging $400 an hour for legal advice.

But he had bigger ambitions. In 2012, the man decided to try his hand in federal court, going to the United States courthouse in Brooklyn where he was sworn in to practice as Stephen G. Dickerman, according to an affidavit.

He has represented clients in at least 12 federal lawsuits, arguing cases in the same federal court where, on Thursday, he was arraigned on charges of identity theft and making fraudulent statements.

Lawyers who had dealt with him — he has several continuing federal cases, the most recent filed on Tuesday — said they were shocked.

“He did not appear, necessarily, to be a good lawyer; he didn’t appear to be a nonlawyer,” said David S. Stone of Stone & Magnanini, who dealt with Shlomo last year.

The confusion over the defendant’s identity continued at a mind-bending arraignment Thursday, where the defendant continued to insist he was Stephen G. Dickerman. Not even the man’s fiancée, a retired public-school teacher, was certain of his true identity, a prosecutor, Lan Nguyen, said.

The scheme began in 2009, according to court documents, when the man came into the Office of Court Administration to renew Mr. Dickerman’s registration to practice law. He changed the business and home addresses, and tried to change the first name to Shlomo.

“Religious reasons,” he explained as he tried unsuccessfully to change the name again in his 2012 registration.

Around that time, the man sought admittance to practice in New York’s Eastern District, which covers Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.

On that application, the defendant added a new flourish: that he had a master’s degree in law from New York University. The affidavit notes that N.Y.U. has no record that a Stephen Dickerman or a Shlomo Dickerman received that law degree.

He was sworn in at Federal District Court in Brooklyn, and soon began bringing federal civil cases in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The real Stephen G. Dickerman said he never sought to appear in the Eastern or Southern District courts, and never did so, according to the affidavit.

A number of state court cases also list Stephen G. Dickerman as the lawyer, though the government’s complaint does not address which Dickerman that was.

By the summer, federal authorities had become suspicious. At a seemingly routine hearing in July on a class-action case that the suspect had filed two months earlier, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation quietly observed the proceedings. One of the agents had already met the real Stephen G. Dickerman, the affidavit says.

Two weeks later, two F.B.I. agents, posing as potential clients, arrived at the Brighton 11th Street address of the suspect.

Taking notes on a legal pad, that man said he would represent the clients for a $10,000 retainer and $400 an hour. He handed over his business card; it read “Shlomo G. Dickerman, JD, LLM, Esq.”

At the arraignment, the judge read the charges against the defendant, saying his first and last name were unknown. Jan A. Rostal, a lawyer for the defendant, then spoke up. “I can clarify that the name of my client is Stephen G. Dickerman,” she said.

Ms. Nguyen, the prosecutor, pointed out that when the defendant was arrested, he had a New York State driver’s license in the name of Steven H. Dickman. That man, she said, “appears to be a disbarred attorney with a criminal history”: two convictions on grand larceny charges, of which one resulted in a three-year prison sentence.

“The government has really no idea who the defendant is at this point,” Ms. Nguyen said, adding that she was awaiting the results of a fingerprint analysis to see if the man was indeed Steven Dickman.

Ms. Rostal said the birth date her client had given to court officers, June 1942, did not match the one on the Steven Dickman driver’s license, February 1945.

And, she said, his fiancée had offered surety in the case.

That fiancée, Ms. Nguyen responded, “doesn’t apparently really know who he is.” The federal magistrate judge, Ramon E. Reyes Jr., concurred. After examining the Dickman license, he refused to grant bail. “I don’t know who this gentleman is,” he said.

The defendant, with curly gray hair, a white beard and a skullcap, rose from his chair and shuffled out of the courtroom — whoever he was.

IMAGE: Whoever he is, this is the office in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where officials say he posed as a lawyer named Stephen G. Dickerman, Shlomo to friends. Credit Brian Harkin for The New York Times

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