Fake Student On The Run

Notre Dame law students were sent an e-mail from Notre Dame officials on Friday stating a person identifying himself as Gary Stearley is posing as a law student and is not actually enrolled at the university.

The e-mail goes on to say that on Thursday he utilized law school services and interacted with several people in the law school.

Gary Stearley has been involved in fake identity scams before and Notre Dame police suspect this is the same person.

Notre Dame released a photo with the e-mail taken from Stearley's MySpace and Facebook pages.

His MySpace page also claims he's enrolled in the law school.

Stearley was arrested back in 2001 in Jacksonville, Florida for impersonating a physician's assistant, as well as trespassing and stealing at several hospitals.

Stearley also been spotted before in Pittsburgh, Seattle, Virginia, Georgia, Texas and Washington, D.C.

Allan Klein and Justin Baker lived with Stearley and say he left the home Sunday morning with his laptop and a few belongings.

The roommates say they are shocked and had no idea that Stearley was hiding something.

Stearley had been living with them for about two months.

He told them he'd graduated from the University of Michigan and had been accepted to Notre Dame Law School.

"There must be thousands of dollars worth of Notre Dame textbooks, in his room, like it's almost like he believed that he was a student," said Baker.

The men say Stearley was a very nice and intelligent, and because he didn't have a car, they would even drive him to law school.

Stearley gave his roommates a tour of the law building and typed a code to get into the building last week, and then another put in another code to use the school's fax machine.

He even interacted with people inside who knew him by name, said Baker.

Klein and Baker became suspicious and scared, though, after watching the news when the story of Stearley posing as a law student was first reported.

All three were watching TV together when they saw the story.

"I was bracing myself against the desk and the wall and thought that he was about to flip out or he was going to go nuts, and here, he's unearthed on TV, potentially being a criminal," said Klein.

Later Stearley told his roommates he would turn himself in to Notre Dame Police on Monday, and the roommates thought about it overnight.

On Sunday morning Klein and Baker went to tell him they'd prefer if he just moved out, but his room door was locked and apparently he'd snuck out the back door.

Stearley took his laptop and some important papers, but he left most of his stuff behind, including various ID cards from other colleges.