A loophole got him a free New York hotel stay for five years. Then he claimed to own the building

[Rimbo 26,420]

https://apnews.com/article/new-yorker-hotel-fraud-free-room-loophole-6505cb6df084002401aab9f6eaecf452

This one starts out really, really weird.

Then it gets even weirder.

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A loophole got him a free New York hotel stay for five years. Then he claimed to own the building

FILE - The New Yorker Hotel, center, is seen in New York, Nov. 8, 2013. A man who succeeded in using a New York City housing law to live rent-free in the iconic hotel has been charged with fraud after he claimed to own it. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

By CEDAR ATTANASIO

Updated 2:25 PM PST, February 15, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — For five years, a New York City man managed to live rent-free in a landmark Manhattan hotel by exploiting an obscure local housing law.

But prosecutors this week said Mickey Barreto went too far when he filed paperwork claiming ownership of the entire New Yorker Hotel building — and tried to charge another tenant rent.

On Wednesday, he was arrested and charged with filing false property records. But Barreto, 48, says he was surprised when police showed up at his boyfriend’s apartment with guns and bullet-proof shields. As far as he is concerned, it should be a civil case, not a criminal one.

“I said ’Oh, I thought you were doing something for Valentine’s Day to spice up the relationship until I saw the female officers,’” Barreto recalled telling his boyfriend.

Barreto’s indictment on fraud and criminal contempt charges is just the latest chapter in the years-long legal saga that began when he and his boyfriend paid about $200 to rent one of the more than 1,000 rooms in the towering Art Deco structure built in 1930.

Barreto says he had just moved to New York from Los Angeles when his boyfriend told him about a loophole that allows occupants of single rooms in buildings constructed before 1969 to demand a six-month lease. Barreto claimed that because he’d paid for a night in the hotel, he counted as a tenant.

He asked for a lease and the hotel promptly kicked him out.

“So I went to court the next day. The judge denied. I appealed to the (state) Supreme Court and I won the appeal,” Barreto said, adding that at a crucial point in the case, lawyers for the building’s owners didn’t show up, allowing him to win by default.

The judge ordered the hotel to give Baretto a key. He said he lived there until July 2023 without paying any rent because the building’s owners never wanted to negotiate a lease with him, but they couldn’t kick him out.

Manhattan prosecutors acknowledge that the housing court gave Barreto “possession” of his room. But they say he didn’t stop there: In 2019, he uploaded a fake deed to a city website, purporting to transfer ownership of the entire building to himself from the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which bought the property in 1976. The church was founded in South Korea by a self-proclaimed messiah, the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Barreto then tried to charge various entities as the owner of the building “including demanding rent from one of the hotel’s tenants, registering the hotel under his name with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection for water and sewage payments, and demanding the hotel’s bank transfer its accounts to him,” the prosecutor’s office said in the statement.

“As alleged, Mickey Barreto repeatedly and fraudulently claimed ownership of one of the City’s most iconic landmarks, the New Yorker Hotel,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Located a block from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, the New Yorker has never been among the city’s most glamorous hotels, but it has long been among its largest. Its huge, red “New Yorker” sign makes it an oft-photographed landmark. Inventor Nikola Tesla lived at the hotel for for a decade. NBC broadcasted from the hotel’s Terrace Room. Boxers, including Muhammad Ali, stayed there when they had bouts at the Garden. It closed as a hotel in 1972 and was used for years for church purposes before part of the building reopened as a hotel in 1994.

The Unification Church sued Barreto in 2019 over the deed claim, including his representations on LinkedIn as the building’s owner. The case is ongoing, but a judge ruled that Barreto can’t portray himself as the owner in the meantime.

A Unification Church spokesperson declined to comment about his arrest, citing the ongoing civil case.

In that case, Baretto argued that the judge who gave him “possession” of his room indirectly gave him the entire building because it had never been subdivided.

“I never intended to commit any fraud. I don’t believe I ever committed any fraud,” Barreto said. “And I never made a penny out of this.”

Barreto said his legal wrangling is activism aimed at denying profits to the Unification Church. The church, known for conducting mass weddings, has been sued over its recruiting methods and criticized by some over its friendly relationship with North Korea, where Moon was born.

He said he has never hired a lawyer for the civil cases and has always represented himself. On Wednesday, he secured a criminal defense attorney.

• facebo

 

 

[WBT 20,735]

Ever see the face on him?  Like a big apple pie.

1 hour ago, Rimbo said:

the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

 

[52-80 19,277]

goddamn bums

[Parliament 14,368]

Good on him.  Beat the system.

[Rimbo 26,420]

10 hours ago, WBT said:

Ever see the face on him?  Like a big apple pie.

 

Yeah, when it got to the point of the Moonies owning the building, that's when it was getting really weird.

So much to unpack here.

[Felix 607]

Yeah I was thinking "what an asshole" until I saw the building was owned by the Moonies.  Once I saw that, it turned to "Good for him!".  Fuck that cult.

[Macanudo 13,081]

Quote

On Wednesday, he was arrested and charged with filing false property records. But Barreto, 48, says he was surprised when police showed up at his boyfriend’s apartment with guns and bullet-proof shields. As far as he is concerned, it should be a civil case, not a criminal one.

“I said ’Oh, I thought you were doing something for Valentine’s Day to spice up the relationship until I saw the female officers,’” Barreto recalled telling his boyfriend.

Edited February 17 by Macanudo

[Macanudo 13,081]

And that boyfriend's name?   George Santos.

 

Maybe not but would you be surprised?

[Rimbo 26,420]

1 minute ago, Macanudo said:

And that boyfriend's name?   George Santos.

 

Maybe not but would you be surprised?

No, not at all. I mean this story has everything; kinky sex, fraud, religious cults with Nork ties...

[Wally Fairway 5,600]

I thought it was another Donald Trump thread

 

Now I'll show myself out

[Js1 85,744]

You just pasted the headline in the title. That’s not clever or funny

 

[Rimbo 26,420]

Just now, Js1 said:

You just pasted the headline in the title. That’s not clever or funny

 

It didn't need any help.

[Nicole44 22,197]

It is a weird story. I’m not a fan of all this “squatting” going on. There is an epidemic of this shit in Atlanta. And people falsifying deeds and all kinds of shit. It’s total bullshit and the courts don’t side with the victim of the squatting a lot of the time. Anyway off my soap box. This story will get weirder. It is already bizarre.
 

But I’ve seen the movie Pacific Heights and I know shit can go real bad. 

[Brian Fantana 6,704]

LMAO he's a fucking moony too? This rules

[Rimbo 26,420]

20 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

LMAO he's a fucking moony too? This rules

No, the building is owned by the Moonies.

 

... or was he also one?

[Brian Fantana 6,704]

11 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

No, the building is owned by the Moonies.

 

... or was he also one?

Oh no I guess I read it wrong

[ClubWhatever 12,159]

I bet they didn't give him fresh sheets and towels

[Blotto 23,679]

Quote

 

Barreto says he had just moved to New York from Los Angeles when his boyfriend told him about a loophole that allows occupants of single rooms in buildings constructed before 1969 to demand a six-month lease. Barreto claimed that because he’d paid for a night in the hotel, he counted as a tenant.

He asked for a lease and the hotel promptly kicked him out.

“So I went to court the next day. The judge denied. I appealed to the (state) Supreme Court and I won the appeal,” Barreto said, adding that at a crucial point in the case, lawyers for the building’s owners didn’t show up, allowing him to win by default.

 

there was probably a riveting debate on some message board somewhere that demanded their undivided attention. 

[Neonmoon 38,130]

On 2/16/2024 at 1:02 AM, Rimbo said:

Barreto said his legal wrangling is activism aimed at denying profits to the Unification Church

Good. Hope he gets the hotel. Fuck that cult 

[BurntEyes 6,060]

Here's what gets me about the entire story, and why I know the principle antagonist is a complete fucking idiot.

Essentially, this ass clown had free rent and living space in a mid-tier hotel in Manhattan... for life, or at least the foreseeable future.

A place that is across the street from Madison Square Garden and a short walk to the train, plenty of fast food, a few coffee shops that look good and a couple of Walgreens. 

He finds a remote working job, doesn't have to pay a lot and his man does the same, they're living a madly cool life in Manhattan and making good money. On fucking easy street.

And he has to go and fuck it all up by pressing his dumb ass luck. Fuck that guy!

 

[Rimbo 26,420]

2 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Here's what gets me about the entire story, and why I know the principle antagonist is a complete fucking idiot.

Essentially, this ass clown had free rent and living space in a mid-tier hotel in Manhattan... for life, or at least the foreseeable future.

A place that is across the street from Madison Square Garden and a short walk to the train, plenty of fast food, a few coffee shops that look good and a couple of Walgreens. 

He finds a remote working job, doesn't have to pay a lot and his man does the same, they're living a madly cool life in Manhattan and making good money. On fucking easy street.

And he has to go and fuck it all up by pressing his dumb ass luck. Fuck that guy!

 

100%.

He had it made. Then he got greedy.

[royiv 9,447]

2 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

Here's what gets me about the entire story, and why I know the principle antagonist is a complete fucking idiot.

Essentially, this ass clown had free rent and living space in a mid-tier hotel in Manhattan... for life, or at least the foreseeable future.

A place that is across the street from Madison Square Garden and a short walk to the train, plenty of fast food, a few coffee shops that look good and a couple of Walgreens. 

He finds a remote working job, doesn't have to pay a lot and his man does the same, they're living a madly cool life in Manhattan and making good money. On fucking easy street.

And he has to go and fuck it all up by pressing his dumb ass luck. Fuck that guy!

 

Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered.

[Pato del Muerto 52,853]

It worked once, why not think it’d work again?

[Bevo 13,633]

Fuck that guy, He sounds like a pretentious little pussy. And the Rev. Moon stuff was BS - He would have just as soon ripped off any non-chain hotel. He will have some rough days ahead as he won't be able to survive a day in jail without crying - so prison - LOL.