Man who used legal loophole to live rent-free for years in NYC hotel found unfit to stand trial

NEW YORK -- A man charged pinch fraud for claiming to own a storied Manhattan edifice wherever he had been surviving rent-free for years has been recovered unfit to guidelines trial, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Doctors examining Mickey Barreto deemed he's not mentally competent to look criminal charges, and prosecutors confirmed nan results during a tribunal proceeding Wednesday, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office.

Judge Cori Weston gave Barreto until Nov. 13. to find suitable inpatient psychiatric care, Bragg's agency said.

Barreto had been receiving outpatient curen for constituent maltreatment and intelligence wellness issues, but doctors concluded aft a caller information that he did not afloat understand nan criminal proceedings, nan New York Times first reported.

Barreto dismissed nan allegations of a supplier problem to immoderate “partying,” and said prosecutors are trying to person him hospitalized because they did not person a beardown lawsuit against him. He does spot immoderate upside.

“It went from being unfriendly, ‘He’s a criminal,’ to oh, they don’t talk astir crime anymore. Now nan main point is, like, ‘Oh, mediocre thing. Finally, we convinced him to spell activity treatment,’” Barreto told The Associated Press connected Wednesday.

Brian Hutchinson, an lawyer for Barreto, didn't instantly respond to a telephone connection seeking comment. But during Wednesday's hearing, he said he planned to inquire his client's existent curen supplier to judge him, nan Times reported.

In February, prosecutors charged Barreto pinch 24 counts, including felony fraud and criminal contempt.

They opportunity he forged a deed to nan New Yorker Hotel purporting to transportation ownership of nan full building to him.

He past tried to complaint 1 of nan hotel's tenants rent and demanded nan hotel’s slope transportation its accounts to him, among different steps.

Barreto started surviving astatine nan edifice successful 2018 aft arguing successful tribunal that he had paid astir $200 for a one-night enactment and truthful had tenant’s rights, based connected a quirk of nan city's lodging laws and nan truth that nan edifice grounded to nonstop a lawyer to a cardinal hearing.

Barreto has said he lived astatine nan edifice without paying immoderate rent because nan building’s owners, nan Unification Church, ne'er wanted to discuss a lease pinch him, but they besides couldn’t legally footwear him out.

Now, his criminal lawsuit whitethorn beryllium steering him toward a benignant of loophole.

“So if you inquire maine if it’s a amended thing, successful a measurement it is. Because I’m not being treated arsenic a criminal but I’m treated for illustration a nutjob,” Barreto told nan AP.

Built successful 1930, nan hulking Art Deco building and its immense reddish “New Yorker” motion is an oft-photographed landmark successful midtown Manhattan.

Muhammad Ali and different celebrated boxers stayed location erstwhile they had bouts astatine adjacent Madison Square Garden, astir a artifact away. Inventor Nikola Tesla moreover lived successful 1 of its much than 1,000 rooms for a decade. And NBC broadcasted from its Terrace Room.

But nan New Yorker closed arsenic a edifice successful 1972 and was utilized for years for religion purposes earlier portion of nan building reopened arsenic a edifice successful 1994.