Mickey Barreto pleaded guilty last week to a fraud charge, the Associated Press reported reportedconfesses to falsifying property records to gain ownership of the property at 481 Eighth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. The plea deal includes a prison sentence that Barreto has already served.
The wild story began in June 2018, when Barreto booked a room at the hotel for one night before asking the hotel to rent the room the next day, in accordance with an unclear section of New York’s rent stabilization law.
The hotel denied this, but he filed a case in housing court for wrongful eviction and was given possession of a single room, according to court documents.
In May 2019, Barreto uploaded false documents to the city’s property records, including a deed transferring ownership of the hotel from the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity to himself.
Barreto reportedly began demanding rent from tenants and tried to gain access to the hotel’s bank accounts, even demanding Holy Spirit’s departure and contacting Wyndham, the hotel’s franchisee, about transferring the franchise to him.
But Holy Spirit went to civil court and won an injunction banning Barreto from presenting himself as the owner of the New Yorker. Barreto allegedly disobeyed the order and filed more false documents, including a fake $400 million deed transferring ownership from himself to him.
Two years ago, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Barreto with 14 counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree – a misdemeanor – and 10 counts of criminal contempt in the second degree. Barreto was also evicted from the hotel in 2024 and later deemed unfit to stand trial, ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment.
Barreto’s guilty plea carries a sentence of six months in prison, which he has already served. He will also be on probation for five years.
— Holden Walter Warner
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