Mickey Barreto, a New York resident, was sentenced to six months in jail and five years of probation after admitting to a fraud scheme carried out between May 2019 and September 2023.
As part of the scheme, Barreto attempted to take control of a Manhattan hotel through what authorities described as a legal maneuver. He was removed from the property in 2024 and faced multiple fraud charges. At one stage, he was deemed unfit to stand trial and was sent for psychiatric treatment.
According to the court ruling, Barreto, 49, rented a room for one night for $200 at the New Yorker Hotel. After his stay, he demanded a lease and claimed he was entitled to tenant protections under New York's rent stabilization law, protections that are considered robust. He relied on an older statute granting tenants in buildings constructed before 1969 protection from eviction.
When the hotel refused to cooperate and did not send a lawyer to housing court, Barreto was granted legal possession of the room. He used that ruling to remain at the hotel for years without paying, citing the obscure tenant protection.
He later escalated his claim from tenant to purported owner and ultimately sought to re-register the building in official records.
As the self-declared “owner,” Barreto attempted to collect rent from at least one occupant and demanded that the hotel’s bank accounts be transferred to him. He later admitted that his ownership claim was based on forged documents.
The ownership dispute also played out in civil courts and before city agencies. At one point the New Yorker Hotel's owners, "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, removed Barreto from the property. He sued in response and obtained a civil court order allowing him to return, and he persuaded officials in the city’s finance department that the civil rulings meant he was the lawful owner of the 43-story building, which is valued at $189 million.
That bureaucratic recognition bolstered his efforts to act as the owner on paper, despite objections from the hotel’s actual owners.
Barreto admitted in court to falsifying property documents and uploading a fraudulent deed to a city website over four years to support his claim that the building belonged to him, according to ABC News.
First published: 13:51, 02.19.26