By Haimy Assefa and Kristina Sgueglia
(CNN) — Jeffery Watson napped in the comfort of a $2,500 presidential suite at Pittsburgh’s stately Omni William Penn Hotel, which has hosted movie stars, leaders of industry, and every U.S. president from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama.
After Watson, 48 and homeless, was awakened Tuesday by guests who had rented the grand suite with crystal chandeliers and a grand piano, police escorted him to the Allegheny County Jail, where the decor is described in the jail’s website as “simple, sturdy and secure.”
Charged with theft of services and criminal trespassing, Watson was jailed on $15,000 bond — now resting in a cell with a narrow bunk with a thin nonflammable mattress, a sink, toilet and a narrow slit window, according to the jail’s website.
There was no immediate reaction from the guests who discovered Watson passed out in their suite of the 97-year-old hotel.
The guests alerted hotel security, who woke Watson from his slumber on a couch and escorted him downstairs into police custody, police spokeswoman Diane Richard said. Watson told police he is from Los Angeles and had been trying to get back home.
The homeless man told police he had been in Pittsburgh a few months, sleeping wherever “he could rest his head.” It was unclear how long he had stayed in the suite.
Eric DeStefano, the hotel’s general manager, told CNN affiliate WTAE that Watson gained access to a parlor area used for receptions after a door was programmed to stay unlocked for an event. He said Watson has been banned from the Penn.
The-CNN-Wire
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