By Ralph Gardner Jr.

July 25, 2004 | 8:00 p.m

Lakers' Bling Stolen

From Carlyle Hotel Room No matter how classy the accommodations or stratospheric the room rates, it's never a smart move to leave your bling-bling lying around your hotel room, as Kareem Rush, a 23-year-old player with the Los Angeles Lakers, discovered on a visit to the Carlyle hotel on June 23. The Lakers' turnover-prone guard told the police that he'd deposited a bag containing his jewelry on the floor of his room and went out. When he returned at 10:25 a.m., he noticed that his property was missing. The bag contained a $32,000 diamond bracelet and a $45,000 diamond-pendant necklace. An NYPD evidence-collection team was notified. However, the chances of them recovering the baubles or identifying the thief seems remote, since the 6-foot-6 player waited until the following day to report the crime. By that time, his room had been cleaned and-given the professionalism of the Carlyle's housekeeping staff-all the surfaces doubtless polished clean of fingerprints. Trendy Card Shark It's one thing to use a stolen credit card, but it really seems to be pushing your luck to buy something that needs to be altered, requiring you to return to the store at a later date. That appears to be at least one of the reasons that a Barneys customer found himself behind bars on July 6. He returned to the department store at 660 Madison Avenue at around 6:30 p.m. to retrieve a jacket he'd had altered-and raised suspicions when he presented a credit card different from the one he'd used to make the original purpose. The mistake was understandable; he seemed to be carrying a veritable library of other people's plastic and probably couldn't remember which card he'd used on his first visit. Nonetheless, he took possession of the garment and made his way to the sunglasses counter, where he used another credit card-apparently in a third person's name-to buy a pair of shades valued at $109. Barneys suspected that that card didn't belong to him, either, as his signature didn't match the one on the card. As he was departing, he was intercepted by a store detective and asked to produce some ID-which shouldn't have been a problem, since he seemed to be carrying so much of it. Rather than comply with the request, however, the identity thief decided to bolt, but was speedily captured a few blocks away. Besides the stolen credit cards, he was found to be in possession of three other receipts in three different names. He was charged with grand larceny.