Mar. 6, 2007 -A woman pretending to be a guest of Stanford University walked out on a bill of over $10,000 at a Palo Alto hotel late last week.

On Friday, Dinah's Garden Court Hotel, located at 4261 El Camino Real, told Palo Alto police officers that a woman operating under an assumed name stayed at the hotel from Jan. 8 to Feb. 28, racking up a bill of $10,374. The hotel charges were roughly $185 per night of lodging.

Agent Rich Bullerjahn of the Palo Alto Police Department said the woman fraudulently told hotel employees that she was a guest of the Stanford Department of Economics, which has lodged visiting dignitaries there in the past.

Bullerjahn said employees did not know there was no one scheduled to be there from the economics department, but at a certain point "they figured she might not be who she said she was." When the hotel changed her room key, the woman fled.

Police said an ongoing investigation of the case is under way.

On Monday, a spokesman from Stanford University said the economics department had not yet heard of the case. The general manager of the hotel did not return a call for comment.

E-mail Kristina Peterson at [email protected].

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