A guest checked into the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan in 2018. He wouldn’t leave, and keeps getting the hotel’s deed transferred into the name of a non-profit he created. He’s tried to take possession of the hotel’s bank accounts and even gone to its lenders to borrow against the property. And the city’s administration and courts even, in part, backed him up.
Here’s the trick:
- Hotels constructed in New York before July 1, 1969 which cost less than $88 per week or $350 per month on May 31, 1968 are subject to rent stabilization laws. The property opened in 1930.
- A person becomes a permanent tenant upon requesting a lease for six months or more. Hotels are barred from “prevent[ing] such occupant from becoming a permanent tenant.”
Mickey Barreto made a reservation for one night at $149. He then requested a rent-controlled lease. Naturally, the hotel said exsqueeze me baking powder? And please leave.
So Barreto filed a deed with the Department of Finance transferring ownership of the hotel to “Mickey Barreto Missions,” a non-profit.
- He argued that the hotel violated New York housing law by denying him a lease and kicking him out. Requesting the lease made him a “permanent tenant.”
- He planned to use the building for a public purpose (he created a religious non-profit with his own name), and the property violated housing law, his non-profit should be the beneficiary of his permanent tenancy.
- Since the hotel was never subdivided, whatever happens to his room which he’s entitled to happens to the whole building. So he becomes the owner of the building, Q.E.D.
Credit: Wyndham
New York City housing court ruled in his favor giving him possession of “the subject premises.” The city recorded the deed. And he started going to retail tenants demanding payment, went to Wyndham and presented himself as the new owner of the hotel, and went to the hotel’s banks to take over their accounts and to further mortgage the property.
The hotel’s true owners – the Unification Church – got a temporary restraining order preventing him from representing himself or acting as the property’s owner. But even that judge acknowledged that Barreto has “certain rights to occupy a particular room within the hotel” even if he didn’t become the owner of the hotel. The man reportedly offered to revert ownership to the Unification Church for $14 million.
Eventually his deed for the property was found to be fraudulent. But he’s back at it having filed a new deed. He signed a document last month backdating a 2021 transfer of ownership from Mickey Barreto Missions to.. the same entity.
The New Yorker was a Hilton from 1953 to 1956 and again from 1967 to 1972. It was then closed, sold to the Unification Church, and not re-opened as a hotel until 1994. It became a Ramada in 2000, and a Wyndham in 2014. Nikola Tesla spent his last ten years living in suite 3327 (where he died in 1943) and Muhammad Ali retreated there after his fight with Joe Frazier in March 1971.
I always thought those commercials for “Home Title Lock” were kind of a scam, but maybe the Unification Church kind of needs the service? And maybe the problem with lack of adequate housing supply in New York City isn’t actually Airbnb, but laws that make it expensive, cumbersome and risky to build and operate housing?
I gotta admit, once I read “Unification Church”, I kinda started rooting for the guy…
I don’t understand why this guy hasn’t found himself pitched out of a high story window. Guess the hotel doesn’t have any connections to the mob.
@Incredulous – more likely, because their windows don’t open 🙂
People’s creativity with loopholes amaze me. Of course, it’s also why our laws are often written (over-written, over-reaching, and/or overly broad) manner. Sometimes, we have to applaud the squeaky wheel when they annoy big business (organizations).
First, when I saw “Unification Church” I thought about a tax scam. If you are a church you are exempt from lots of taxes. There are lots of fake church tax shelters out there. So there, if you can scam a scammer, then great, let scammers screw each other.
Secondly, if you are a real businessman, especially in New York, you need to have Italian “friends” to help you when the corrupted judges are siding with greedy lawyers and criminals.
This sounds like a good plan for Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption to get a new home.
@Incredulous +10000
Pure abuse of the system.
If the deed to the property was fraudulent, why didn’t the Democrat Manhattan DA go after the guy?
He could have slowed his roll and just taken over one room at a time, collect rent on subleases, and then do a hostile takeover of the whole shabang.
Ah, @Aloha – Nice to see you can drag politics into anything. That’s pretty petulant.
@ Gennady
The windows need to be open?
What happened to morals? Right and wrong? Thank God for Karma.
You know what. The guy is freaking creative and good for him. I never say this but I am on his side here. LOL
NYC is so special.
@Gennady:
When the Mob wants a window open, the window gets opened, capisce?
@Christian:
Politics or no, it’s a fair question. Why no press conference? Why not pursue a high profile allegedly fraudulent real estate case?
@Strikelord – not in his case, obvisously.
Hope he paid his taxes or he can try the same scam from federal prison!
Is he getting points?
I have heard of having an idea, but that’s on TV “Shark Tank.”
Sooooo….. Is the NY AG going to file fraud charges against him too?
Looking forward to the netflix docudrama on it!
Hope this guy drinks some red bull before the Italian “friends” pick him up for the party 😀
The hotel is already owned by a church? That sounds like it’s own little tax scam going on.
Literally, anywhere else in America this guy would be prosecuted for fraud.
Guy DeAngelo, the guy is probably a Democrat so the AG will be on his side.
What’s next move into the 33,000 sq ft Trump Tower Penthouse.
By the time he would be forced out it would be the 10,000 sq ft Letitia James Towers Penthouse
cool .. he is/was an adult film actor under the name Gabriel D’Alessandro 🙂
Squatters gotta squat.