As it did? Lived for free in a New York hotel for five years

A man identified as Mickey Barreto was able to live for five years for free in an iconic New York hotel because of a legal gray. However, everything spiraled out of control when he filed claim papers for the entire building and tried to collect rent from another tenant.

By Time

The Daily News recently reported that a 48-year-old fraudster was accused of using a loophole in housing laws to repeatedly file false property records claiming ownership of a hotel New Yorker had lived in rent-free for five years.

A 48-year-old fraudster is accused of appearing

It all started in June 2018 when Barretto, traveling to New York from Los Angeles, California, booked a room at the New Yorker for one night, the prosecutor's office told the aforementioned media.

After this, he discovered a loophole in the city's housing code that allowed residents of single-room buildings built before 1969 to require six-room units, as required by New York's rent stabilization law, and asked the hotel to lease the room with him. Monthly lease.

The man said he should be considered a tenant because he had paid for one night at the hotel, but the New Yorker Hotel rejected that offer. However, some time later, Pareto filed a lawsuit for unfair eviction, and the judge in charge of the case ordered the hotel to give Pareto a key. The man lived there without paying rent until July 2023 because the building's owners did not want to negotiate a lease with him, but they could not evict him.

In recent days, the man was arrested and charged with filing false property records, CBS News reported. Micky Barreto is charged with fourteen counts of delivering a false instrument in the first degree and ten counts of misdemeanor criminal contempt.

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