As it did? This man lived for free in a hotel in New York for five years

A man known as Mickey Barreto managed to live for five years for free in a prestigious hotel in New York due to legal gray. However, things spiraled out of control when he filed documents claiming ownership of the entire building and tried to collect rent from another tenant.

for time

The 48-year-old alleged fraudster is accused of repeatedly filing false property records claiming to own the New Yorker Hotel, where he lived rent-free for five years, using a loophole in housing laws, the Daily News recently reported.

The 48-year-old is accused of impersonating an alleged fraudster

It all started when Barretto, who had just moved to New York from Los Angeles, California, booked a room at the New Yorker for one night in June 2018, the prosecutor’s office told the aforementioned media.

After this, he asked the hotel to lease the rooms with him, in accordance with New York’s rent stabilization law, finding a loophole in the city’s housing law that requires residents of single-room buildings built before 1969 to have six-rooms. month lease.

The man said he should be considered a tenant because he had paid for one night at the hotel, but the New Yorker Hotel rejected the offer. However, Barreto later filed a suit for unjustified eviction and the judge in charge of the case ordered the hotel to hand over the keys to Barreto. The man stayed there without paying rent until July 2023 because the building’s owners never wanted to negotiate a lease with him, but they couldn’t evict him.

In recent days, the man was arrested and charged with filing false property records, CBS News reported. Mickey Barretto is charged with fourteen counts of offering a false instrument for presentation in the first degree and ten counts of misdemeanor criminal contempt.

Read more in El Tiempo