The man who once claimed to own the New Yorker Hotel has something else in his pocket these days: a conviction.
Mickey Barreto pleaded guilty to a fraud charge last week, the Associated Press reported, confessing to forging property records to take ownership of the property at 481 Eighth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. The plea deal includes a prison sentence Barreto already served.
The wild story started in June 2018, when Barreto booked a room at the hotel for one night before asking the hotel for a lease of the room the following day, in accordance with an obscure part of New York’s rent stabilization law.
The hotel denied, but he filed a case in housing court for wrongful eviction and was granted possession of a single room, according to court documents.
In May 2019, Barreto uploaded fake documents into the city’s property records, including a deed transferring the hotel’s ownership from the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity to himself.
Barreto allegedly started demanding rent from tenants and tried accessing the hotel’s bank accounts, going so far as to demand Holy Spirit leave and contact Wyndham, the hotel’s franchise holder, about transferring the franchise to him.
But Holy Spirit went to civil court and won an order banning Barreto from presenting himself as the New Yorker’s owner. Barreto allegedly failed to abide by the order and filed more false documents, including a phony $400 million deed transferring ownership from himself to himself.
Two years ago, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Barreto with 14 counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree — a felony — 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, mandated to undergo psychiatric treatment.
Barreto’s guilty plea carries a six-month prison sentence, which he’s already served. He will also be on probation for five years.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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