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   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   NEW YORK (AP) — For five years, a New York City man managed to live rent-   
   free in a landmark Manhattan hotel by exploiting an obscure local housing   
   law.   
      
   But prosecutors this week said Mickey Barreto went too far when he filed   
   paperwork claiming ownership of the entire New Yorker Hotel building — and   
   tried to charge another tenant rent.   
      
   On Wednesday, he was arrested and charged with filing false property   
   records. But Barreto, 48, says he was surprised when police showed up at   
   his boyfriend's apartment with guns and bulletproof shields. As far as he   
   is concerned, it should be a civil case, not a criminal one.   
      
   “I said, ‘Oh, I thought you were doing something for Valentine’s Day to   
   spice up the relationship until I saw the female officers,’” Barreto   
   recalled telling his boyfriend.   
      
   Barreto's indictment on fraud and criminal contempt charges is just the   
   latest chapter in the yearslong legal saga that began when he and his   
   boyfriend paid about $200 to rent one of the more than 1,000 rooms in the   
   towering Art Deco structure built in 1930.   
      
   Barreto says he had just moved to New York from Los Angeles when his   
   boyfriend told him about a loophole that allows occupants of single rooms   
   in buildings constructed before 1969 to demand a six-month lease. Barreto   
   claimed that because he'd paid for a night in the hotel, he counted as a   
   tenant.   
      
   He asked for a lease and the hotel promptly kicked him out.   
      
   “So I went to court the next day. The judge denied. I appealed to the   
   (state) Supreme Court and I won the appeal,” Barreto said, adding that at   
   a crucial point in the case, lawyers for the building's owners didn't show   
   up, allowing him to win by default.   
      
   The judge ordered the hotel to give Barreto a key. He said he lived there   
   until July 2023 without paying any rent because the building's owners   
   never wanted to negotiate a lease with him, but they couldn't kick him   
   out.   
      
   Manhattan prosecutors acknowledge that the housing court gave Barreto   
   “possession” of his room. But they say he didn't stop there: In 2019, he   
   uploaded a fake deed to a city website, purporting to transfer ownership   
   of the entire building to himself from the Holy Spirit Association for the   
   Unification of World Christianity, which bought the property in 1976. The   
   church was founded in South Korea by a self-proclaimed messiah, the late   
   Rev. Sun Myung Moon.   
      
   Barreto then tried to charge various entities as the owner of the building   
   “including demanding rent from one of the hotel’s tenants, registering the   
   hotel under his name with the New York City Department of Environmental   
   Protection for water and sewage payments, and demanding the hotel’s bank   
   transfer its accounts to him,” the prosecutor’s office said in the   
   statement.   
      
   “As alleged, Mickey Barreto repeatedly and fraudulently claimed ownership   
   of one of the City’s most iconic landmarks, the New Yorker Hotel,” said   
   Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.   
      
   Located a block from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, the New   
   Yorker has never been among the city's most glamorous hotels, but it has   
   long been among its largest. Its huge, red “New Yorker” sign makes it an   
   oft-photographed landmark. Inventor Nikola Tesla lived at the hotel for   
   for a decade. NBC broadcasted from the hotel’s Terrace Room. Boxers,   
   including Muhammad Ali, stayed there when they had bouts at the Garden. It   
   closed as a hotel in 1972 and was used for years for church purposes   
   before part of the building reopened as a hotel in 1994.   
      
   The Unification Church sued Barreto in 2019 over the deed claim, including   
   his representations on LinkedIn as the building's owner. The case is   
   ongoing, but a judge ruled that Barreto can't portray himself as the owner   
   in the meantime.   
      
   A Unification Church spokesperson declined to comment about his arrest,   
   citing the ongoing civil case.   
      
   In that case, Barreto argued that the judge who gave him “possession” of   
   his room indirectly gave him the entire building because it had never been   
   subdivided.   
      
   “I never intended to commit any fraud. I don’t believe I ever committed   
   any fraud,” Barreto said. “And I never made a penny out of this.”   
      
   Barreto said his legal wrangling is activism aimed at denying profits to   
   the Unification Church. The church, known for conducting mass weddings,   
   has been sued over its recruiting methods and criticized by some over its   
   friendly relationship with North Korea, where Moon was born.   
      
   He said he has never hired a lawyer for the civil cases and has always   
   represented himself. On Wednesday, he secured a criminal defense attorney.   
      
   https://news.yahoo.com/loophole-got-him-free-york-215002080.html   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)