Stanford University is responding after a man pretending to be a student lived in multiple dorms for almost a year.
The university’s Department of Public Safety removed the suspect from campus last week.
He was living in a dorm's basement when police found him and claims to have lived in at least five dorms for nearly 10 months, The Stanford Daily reported. The basement has temporary rooms that the university uses for students requiring a transition in housing, according to the newspaper.
Students living in the Crothers Hall dorm told The Daily that the man, who identified himself as William Curry, has lived in the dorm since the second week of the fall semester, socialized with the other residents and was let into the dorm regularly by sympathetic resident assistants.
The impersonator was allegedly posing as a sophomore from Birmingham, Alabama studying pre-med, was often seen sporting a Stanford athletic backpack, and gave the impression that he was a member of the track team, The Daily reported. He allegedly told others he was a transfer student from Duke University.
"It was shocking, just realizing that he lied to us," Crothers Hall resident Olivia Roti, told the newspaper. "We just went along with it, we totally believed him."
University police issued Curry a stay-away order after he was accused of stealing a television from the dorm basement, according to The Daily. Prior to that, he had been removed from different buildings on campus at least four times and was accused of harassing multiple students, per the newspaper.
Stanford spokeswoman Dee Mostofi told the San Francisco Chronicle that Curry was reported to have been on campus several times since December 2021, and that multiple stay-away orders were obtained, but officials had trouble locating him until the television theft last week.
"While Stanford University has protocols and policies in place to prevent non-students from entering and living in our residences, the unique aspects of this case and Mr. Curry's persistence and ability to ingratiate himself with our student community has made it clear that gaps exist in those protocols," Mostofi said in a statement.
She added that the university will review its procedures to prevent such an incident from happening again.
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