A woman who stayed at a California hotel for over two years while claiming to be an undercover IRS agent has been ordered by a judge to pay the hotel for the $55,000 bill she amassed.
Sherry Lynn Vertoch, 64, has been sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay the hotel tab, according to the
Vertoch stayed at the Inn Marin Hotel in Novato, Calif., and repeatedly told the staff that she was a contract employee at the IRS, even though she never worked there, and that they should invoice her for the $79-per-night room. She stayed at the hotel on and off going back to 2002, and began a two-year residence there in 2006.
She had assured hotel management that she would forward the invoices to her superiors at the IRS, but they would not be able to pay her until the completion of her investigation. Vertoch claimed to be a member of an elite team that specialized in investigating large corporations. She told hotel staff she had testified in the Enron case and finally brought them down.
One of the hotels co-owners, Robert Marshall, told her that he could not afford to finance the Internal Revenue Service, and she suggested that he send an invoice to Accounting Department Federal Investigation IRS. After he contacted the Treasury Department and learned she was not an IRS employee, she was arrested.
