I keep seeing stories about how squatter's right are a bit out of control in the USA right now and a lot of people are taking advantage of old and antiquated laws regarding a person's ability to take ownership of a place that is unoccupied. This is kind of infuriating when I read about these things but I have heard nothing of the sort taking place anywhere near where I live.
A lot of the times these squatters actually win and I just find that despicable. One person has taken it too far though and after using loopholes to remain in a downtown NYC apartment for nearly 5 years without paying any rent, his devious ambitions got to be a bit too... ahem... ambitious, when he attempted to claim ownership of the entire downtown building.
The fraudster's name is Mickey Barreto and he is a real piece of work. When he moved to New York City he rented a room for $200 but was informed that an old law would entitle him to a 6-month lease at the nightly rate that he had paid if he filed for it in a court of law. He did so, but the judge rightfully dismissed the absurd case. He appealed the case to the Supreme Court of New York and somehow they miraculously ruled in his favor. So the hotel had no choice but to let him stay in the hotel for 6 months. This is a gigantic hotel that has near 1000 rooms and is valued at over $400 million. It's tough to say for sure, but the owners of the hotel likely just decided to ignore the guy and let him stay there and he continued to do so for nearly 5 years. At one point he took the owners of the building to court and their lawyers failed to turn up so he won the case and this lead to him being able to stay there even longer.
I think this is kind of proof that the owners considered him a non-issue and were content to just let him stay there for nothing provided he didn't do anything criminal. Well a criminal he apparently is because he began to let his fraud-filled ways go to his head when he decided to make fraudulent deeds claiming that he was the owner of the building. He then started to attempt to obtain rent from other people living in the building. He even changed his LinkedIn profile indicating that he was the owner of the entire building.
The building is actually (and quite strangely) owned by a massive Korean church and I guess they had had enough of his shenanigans because they filed legal documents to have Mickey arrested for fraud and I guess the NYC law-enforcement actually will do something if pressed enough because they raided "his" apartment and arrested Mickey.
Unsurprisingly given the crazy times that we live in, Mickey is claiming to be the victim here and is also claiming that he never made any money off of this scheme and that his "work" was actually activism because he claims the Unification Church has close ties with North Korea's leadership. They also just happen to be anti-gay-marriage and Mickey is gay, but I am sure that is just a coincidence.
I sincerely hope that the courts throw Mickey on his ass out on the streets but given the way things go in the NYC justice at this particular time, I wouldn't surprise me if they dismiss the case and tell the actual owners of the hotel that they have to continue to allow him to live there.
His claim that he "never made a penny out of this" is something that makes me want to slap him. Not paying rent for 5 years in downtown NYC is more than a penny bro... that is hundreds of thousands of dollars.