New York hotel resident abused obscure local housing law, prosecutors say

What you need to know

A man who managed to use New York City’s housing law to live rent-free in an iconic hotel was charged with fraud after claiming to own the hotel
Prosecutors in Manhattan charged Mickey Barreto with fraud and contempt, including filing false ownership information
They say he forged a deed to the hotel he moved into in 2018 after a judge ruled he had tenant rights because he had rented a room

A man accused of fraud claim to own a storied Manhattan hotel where he lived rent-free for years has been found unfit to stand trial, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Doctors who examined Mickey Barreto ruled that he was not mentally competent to face criminal charges, and prosecutors confirmed the results at a hearing Wednesday, according to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Judge Cori Weston gave Barreto until Nov. 13 to find appropriate psychiatric care, Bragg’s office said.

Barreto had been receiving outpatient treatment for substance abuse and mental health problems, but doctors concluded after a recent evaluation that he did not fully understand the criminal proceedings, first the New York Times reported.

Barreto dismissed the allegations of a drug problem from some “partying party,” saying prosecutors are trying to have him hospitalized because they didn’t have a strong case against him. He sees some advantages.

“It went from unfriendly, ‘He’s a criminal,’ to oh, they don’t talk about crime anymore. Now the main thing is like, “Oh, poor thing. Ultimately, we convinced him to seek treatment,” Barreto told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Brian Hutchinson, an attorney for Barreto, did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment. But during Wednesday’s hearing, he said he planned to ask his client’s current practitioner to accept him, the Times reported.

In February, prosecutors charged Barreto with 24 counts, including felony fraud and criminal contempt.

They say he forged a deed to the New Yorker Hotel, purporting to transfer ownership of the entire building to him.

He then tried to charge rent to one of the hotel’s tenants, demanding, among other things, that the hotel’s bank transfer the bills to him.

Barreto started living at the hotel in 2018 after arguing in court that he had paid about $200 for a one-night stay and therefore had tenant rights, based on a quirk of the city’s housing laws and the fact that the hotel was there failed to send a lawyer to an important hearing.

Barreto has said he lived in the hotel without paying rent because the building’s owners, the… Unification Churchnever wanted to negotiate a lease with him, but they couldn’t legally kick him out either.

Now his criminal case could lead him to some sort of loophole.

“So if you ask me if it’s better, in a way it is. Because I am not being treated like a criminal, but like a madman,” Barreto told the AP.

The colossal Art Deco building, built in 1930, and its enormous red “New Yorker” sign are an oft-photographed landmark in downtown Manhattan.

Muhammad Ali and other famous boxers stayed there when they had fights at nearby Madison Square Garden, about a block away. Inventor Nikola Tesla even lived in one of the more than a thousand rooms for ten years. And NBC broadcast from the Terrace Room.

But the New Yorker closed as a hotel in 1972 and was used for church purposes for years before part of the building reopened as a hotel in 1994.