Man who lived rent-free in New Yorker Hotel, then claimed to own it, pleads guilty

A New York City man who claimed to own a storied Manhattan hotel has pleaded guilty to fraud

NEW YORK — A New York City man who attempted to claim ownership of the New Yorker Hotel has pleaded guilty to fraud, ending a lengthy legal saga involving an obscure tenant law that allowed the man to live rent-free for years in the storied Manhattan hotel.

Mickey Barreto entered the plea on Wednesday, admitting that he had forged property records in an effort to take ownership over the hotel. That effort was, at least on paper, partially successful.

In Barreto’s telling, he and his boyfriend paid $200 in 2018 to rent one of the more than 1,000 rooms in the towering, oft-photographed Art Deco hotel. Barreto then requested a lease, claiming his one night stay entitled him to protections under a city housing law that applies to single-room occupants of buildings constructed before 1969.

When the hotel rebuffed him, he took his case to housing court. After the hotel failed to send a lawyer to a key hearing, Barreto was awarded “possession” of the room.

But Manhattan prosecutors said Barreto then went a step further, defrauding the state by uploading a fake deed to a city website that purported to transfer