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