Apr. 14, 2006 - Waukesha -- A Greenfield man was charged Thursday with illegally running up a $17,000 Brookfield hotel bill on his former employer's charge card.

Gary L. Andreas was charged in a criminal complaint that says he was authorized to charge his room at the Sheraton Hotel on the credit card when he began staying at the inn in November. But when his permission to use the card ended with his employment on Dec. 31, he continued staying at the hotel and kept having the bill applied to the credit card, according to the complaint.

By the time hotel personnel realized earlier this month that Andreas' authorization to use the card had ended, his tab was more than $19,000, the complaint says.

When he made his initial appearance in Waukesha County Circuit Court on Thursday afternoon on a felony charge of fraud on an innkeeper, Andreas was ordered by Court Commissioner Martin Binn to stay away from the hotel and refrain from using credit cards as long as his case is pending.

The complaint gives the following account:

Andreas, formerly of Columbus, Ohio, began staying at the hotel at 375 S. Moorland Road while working as a consultant for Sirius Works Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga. For two months, Andreas, 47, was authorized to apply his room and meal bills to the firm's card.

On Dec. 31, his contract with Sirius ended, and he began working for Onyx Waste Services in the Milwaukee area. Andreas continued to stay at the hotel until April 4, when hotel personnel learned that Sirius had stopped sponsoring his stay months earlier.

By that time, the total room bill was $19,121, with a little more than $17,000 of it having been improperly applied to the Sirius credit card.

Andreas was then confronted by hotel personnel and presented with a bill for the improper balance. Police were contacted this week after hotel personnel decided they were not willing to wait the two weeks that Andreas said he would need to come up with the money.

When he was questioned about the situation police, Andreas told them he continued staying at the hotel past the end of December because he was having difficulty finding an apartment because of "his bad credit."

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