Man who lived rent-free in New Yorker Hotel, then claimed to own it, pleads guilty to fraud charge

NEW YORK (AP) – A New York man who tried to claim to own the New Yorker Hotel has ended a scandal by pleading guilty to fraud. long legal saga It involved an obscure tenant law that allowed the man to live rent-free at the famous hotel in Manhattan for years.

Mickey Barreto entered the plea Wednesday and admitted to falsifying real estate records in an attempt to gain ownership of the hotel. This effort was partially successful, at least on paper.

Barreto said she and her boyfriend paid $200 to rent one of more than 1,000 rooms at the oft-photographed Art Deco hotel in 2018. Barreto then filed a demand for rent, claiming that his one-night stay entitled him to protection under the city housing code that applies to one-room occupants in buildings built before 1969.

When the hotel rejected him, he took the case to housing court. After the hotel failed to send a lawyer to an important hearing, Barreto was given “possession” of the room.

But Manhattan prosecutors said Barreto went one step further and defrauded the state by uploading a fake deed to a city website claiming to transfer ownership of the entire building to himself.

The property is currently owned by the Holy Spirit Association. Unification of World Christianity, It was founded in South Korea by a deceased self-proclaimed messiah. Priest Sun Myung Moon. The church did not respond to an emailed inquiry.

Barreto then tried to collect rent from a hotel tenant and demanded that the hotel’s bank turn over its accounts to him, according to prosecutors.

He was eventually evicted from the building in 2024 and indicted on multiple felony fraud charges. Found later unfit to stand trial and was ordered to receive psychiatric treatment.

As part of the plea, Barreto was sentenced to five years of probation as well as six months in prison, which he had already served, according to a spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney.

Barreto’s attorney, Brian Hutchinson, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.

barretto I told AP before He said the judge who gave him “possession” of his room indirectly gave him the entire building because it was never subdivided.

“I never intended to commit fraud. I don’t think I ever committed fraud,” Barreto said at the time. “And I never made a dime from it.”