Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Andy Borowitz

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Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Drowning in debt, Donald J. Trump has been forced to unload his treasured collection of over two hundred Republican congresspersons.

"If the Joe Biden legal system can make me sell my politicians, it can make you sell yours," he warned supporters at a rally in Michigan. "This should never be allowed to happen in this country."

But even as the indicted businessman put his used legislators on the block, economist Davis Logsdon, who tracks the resale market for public officials, questioned how much they will fetch.

"The first thing any prospective buyer of preowned politicians wants to know is, what condition are they in?" he said. "Unfortunately, many of these House Republicans are missing such crucial features as brains and spines, and, in the case of the men, two other parts."

The economist cited the cautionary example of Koch Industries, which had to withdraw Rep. Matt Gaetz from eBay in February after he drew a top bid of $30.



--
****
Juan Matute
     (New link as of 25 March - click on it)
― The Lincoln Project


Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Fwd: [pilgrim-place-residents] Fwd: Trump Wants You to Buy the "God Bless the USA" Bible



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Date: Tue, Mar 26, 2024 at 1:43 PM
Subject: [pilgrim-place-residents] Fwd: Trump Wants You to Buy the "God Bless the USA" Bible
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A substack blog by Jemar Tisby.  God, have mercy.
Elizabeth

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Date: Tue, Mar 26, 2024 at 11:37 AM
Subject: Trump Wants You to Buy the "God Bless the USA" Bible
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During Holy Week, the former president is hawking patriotic Bibles
͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­͏     ­
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Trump Wants You to Buy the "God Bless the USA" Bible

During Holy Week, the former president is hawking patriotic Bibles

Mar 26
 
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Happy Holy Week!

Now you can celebrate the most important time of the Christian calendar by buying your copy of the "God Bless the USA" Bible and doing your part to Make America Great Again!

In a stunningly blatant display of white Christian nationalism, Donald Trump is encouraging his followers to buy a pro-America Bible in partnership with singer Lee Greenwood who is best known for his 1984 song, "God Bless the USA."

In a video on social media, Trump stands centered in front of two American flags and holds up a brown leather Bible.

All the visual cues speak to the melding of faith and politics into a toxic brew of anti-democratic authoritarianism.

What Trump proceeds to say in the message is as stark an illustration of white Christian nationalism as we've seen in his short and tumultuous political career.

"I'm proud to be partnering with my very good friend, Lee Greenwood. Who doesn't love his song 'God Bless the USA.' In connection with promoting the 'God Bless the USA' Bible," he begins.

This printing of the Bible is in the King James Version, and includes political documents such as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Trump's statement and bald attempt to secure funds amid staggering debts related to various court trials go beyond the common instances of American civic religion, and ceremonial appeals for God's blessing.

Instead, Trump and white Christian nationalists claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and the country is suffering to the extent it strays away from a very narrow interpretation of the faith.

"Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country…I think it's one of the biggest problems we have; that's why our country is going haywire. We've lost religion in our country."

The problem in the United States is not racism, growing wealth disparities, a loss of social support systems, or crippling prices on basic goods and services.

The problem with the country, in a white Christian nationalist frame, is that we are not sufficiently religious. The solution, then, is to become more religious, more vocal, and more insistent that a fundamentalist brand of Christianity hold sway in the public sphere.

Understanding his support among a certain type of Christian voter, Trump has been increasingly vocal about his affiliation to the faith. He asserts that he loves the Bible.

"All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book. It's a lot of people's favorite book."

One wonders if "all Americans" who need Bibles includes Muslims, Jewish people, atheists, agnostics and others who do not consider the Bible their sacred text.

A sense of aggrievement is central to white Christian nationalist claims.

They say they are being persecuted for their beliefs and shoved into the corners of society by an ascendant, progressive and secular agenda.

"Christians are under siege but must protect content that is pro-God. We love God, and we have to protect anything that is pro-God. We must defend God in the public square and not allow the media or the Left-wing groups to silence, censor, or discriminate against us."

While it is true that the proportion of Christians is declining, white Christians continue to enjoy a privileged racial and religious status compared to others, even other Christians of color.

But the mission of white Christian nationalists is not simply religious, it is political. They use Christianity as a "permission structure" to give a divine blessing on their true goal—the acquisition of political power.

According to white Christian nationalist ideology, only by standing with Trump and his allies will the US once again be the "city on a hill" that God ordained it to be.

Image of brown leather Lee Greenwood 'God Bless the USA Bible' cover

Trump encourages Christians to rise up and stand for what the "Founding Fathers" allegedly intended—for the United States to be a bastion of Christian piety and a sign of God's unstoppable. benevolent power in the world.

Not only does Trump want to make America great again he says, "We must make America pray again."

How can this happen? How can faithful Christians and true patriots bring religion back into politics?

By supporting Trump, of course.

"Stand with me and the legions of Americans asking God to bless our great nation, to bring our great nation back and to make America great again."

But Christian America cannot merely support Donald Trump politically, they must also support him financially by buying the "God Bless the USA" Bible.

"I think you all should get a copy of 'God Bless the USA' Bible now, and help spread our Christian values with others.

Trump suggests that buying this Bible is about nothing more than evangelism and spreading the Christian faith. He does not say that he needs the money or that he will benefit financially from the commodification of his brand of political religion.

Trump, the White Christian Nationalist-in-Chief simply ends with a benediction:

"There you have it. Let's make America pray again. God bless you, and God bless the USA."

And God help us.

What did you think of Trump's ad for the "God Bless the USA" Bible? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions" Rilke

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Monday, March 25, 2024

Something to Know - 25 March

Here is a teaser of a sub-stack column that has been published to attract subscribers.   It is fairly newsy and has some entertainment value.  If you like it, and want to subscribe, I guess the intention of the publisher is for you to go for it.   As for me, I am all tapped out on subscriptions, but not ashamed to read and pass on something:

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You are currently a free subscriber to the Status Kuo. If you agree that this is great content, and that great content ought to be supported, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today!


Time to Pay the Piper

Trump faces Judgment Day on that $464 million verdict, as well as a possible April trial date for his Manhattan case. But does he have a lifeline?

MAR 25

Photos courtesy of NY1

It's a wild week in Trumpworld, for three reasons.

First, today is the deadline for Trump to post an appellate bond to stop New York Attorney General Letitia James from collecting on that $464 million civil fraud judgment. Trump's lawyers have argued that a bond that size is a "practical impossibility" and are asking an appellate panel to cut it down or waive it. 

Second, today was also supposed to kick off Trump's first criminal trial. He's charged in Manhattan with 34 state counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments during the 2016 election. But the trial got postponed after the U.S. government produced a massive trove of documents earlier this month. Trump's lawyers have sought a 90-day delay and even to dismiss the case based on this surprise dump. 

Third, this is also the week shares of Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, become publicly tradable. That could earn Trump some three billion dollars on paper. But would this be a possible lifeline for him to make good on the bond or pay off the judgment?

Today I'll discuss the first of these in more detail before touching briefly on the second and third. I'll try to set some reasonable expectations around what is inherently a bit unpredictable. Buckle up, because it could be a bumpy week.

Judgment Day

Trump's critics have been anticipating this day for some time. Attorney General James's 30-day grace period on enforcing a $464 million civil fraud judgment expires today, meaning she can get down to the business of collection if Trump doesn't post a bond big enough to cover the judgment plus interest.

It's useful to lay out the brief history, as reported by ABC News, of how we got to this point. It's a story of delays and whining for special treatment, and it's full of contradictions.

After the verdict was rendered, Trump's lawyers asked Judge Engoron to delay entering the judgment for 30 days—a request he denied. He entered judgment on Feb. 22, starting the clock on financial penalties.

Then Trump went to the Appellate Division asking that he only be required to post $100 million—around a fifth of what would normally be required. A bond for the full amount would be "impossible," his lawyers claimed, and would have required the sale of properties to satisfy. An appellate judge denied that request on Feb. 28, but he did permit Trump to seek help from surety companies to cover the full amount. 

Still unsatisfied, Trump's lawyers went back before the same appellate court. They claimed that finding a surety to cover the entire amount—a bond of some $550 million—was a "practical impossibility." And they noted that more than 30 surety companies had turned down the bond.

Eric Trump went on social media to complain in a similar way:

A half a billion dollar bond is simply not commercially available. The 30 largest bonding companies in the United States have never seen a bond close to this size for anyone, let alone a private company. Letitia James is hellbent on a political vendetta against my father with zero regard for the lives of thousands of hard-working New Yorkers, who make their living in our buildings.

On the Fox Network, he told anchor Maria Bartiromo,

Every single person when I came to them saying, "Hey, can I get a half-billion-dollar bond?" Maria, they were laughing. They were laughing."

A couple things. 

First, as MSNBC's Lisa Ruben pointed out, there's no requirement that a single surety or lender come up with whole amount. Indeed, the state's lawyers pointed out that other large judgments have been bonded by "dividing up the bond amount among several sureties, thereby limiting any individual surety's risk to a smaller sum, such as $100 million or $200 million apiece.

Second, it's not as if this sum is the biggest bond ever. The NY AG cited multiple instances where the bond was over $1 billion. And the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it's really up to the states to set the bond rules and limits, and it let stand a bond as high as $13 billion in the Texaco case.

To make things even harder for his own lawyers, Trump recently went on Truth Social to undermine their claim that it would be impossible to post the bond. He boasted that he actually has $500 million cash. As the Washington Post reported,

"I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president," Trump said Friday morning in a TruthSocial post in all caps. He then claimed New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron was aware of his cash on hand, and set the bond in that range on purpose.

It's unclear how much cash on hand Trump actually has, but it's unlikely that it is $500 million. If he indeed has that amount, it was very foolish of him to announce it, because as of today, Tish James has the power to seize assets from his bank accounts.

"I've never seen a stupider litigant," said former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissman in an interview with Lawrence O'Donnell. "He has an application before the court where the application is, 'Please lower the bond amount because I cannot pay it.' And at the same time, he has said, 'I can pay it.' So just put yourself in the shoes of the judges who have that application before them. Do you think they would grant that, based on the defendant now saying, 'Oh, I can actually pay it?'"

Trump hates nothing more than appearing weak, and in his world, "broke" means weak. Either he doesn't truly grasp the enormity of what's at stake, or he intends to dare James to come collecting, just as he has with everyone else over his life whom he has stiffed by not paying what he owes. 

But James is no small-time vendor, and she has the power of liens and even the sheriff behind her should it prove necessary to seize assets. I do not believe that she will move on him right away; after all, there is the appellate application pending (which likely won't be heard until Tuesday or even Thursday given the court hearing calendar), and she might look foolish to move aggressively only to be knocked back by the courts. 

But assuming (and in hoping that) the appellate division doesn't provide Trump with any special treatment on his bond, his money and property are now fair game for James to collect. We shouldn't expect theatrics, but rather the filing of liens on several key properties, such as 40 Wall Street and the Silver Springs estate, and the freezing of his bank accounts. Then we'll see if he really has anywhere close to the $500 million he foolishly boasted about.

One other wrinkle: Trump could seek to delay all of this by filing for bankruptcy protection. That would force James to get in line with all the other creditors and would solve his temporary cash crunch. But bankruptcy would deal a severe blow to his image as a rich "winner," subject him to ridicule from the left and in the media, and even set him back significantly before the eyes of his followers, so I don't believe it is likely to happen. And Trump has privately ruled out bankruptcy, according to reports.

He may instead be hoping for the $3 billion lifeline that Trump Media going public could offer him. More on that in a bit.

Tranche warfare

There was a hiccup in the Manhattan DA's case against Trump that knocked the trial start date back at least a few weeks. Without going into too much detail, the U.S. government (which again is not the prosecuting party) was slow to produce voluminous amounts of documents requested in the case. When it finally did, on March 1, Trump's lawyers cried foul because it was a huge trove of some 100,000 documents.

They immediately demanded, and received with the DA's blessing, a continuance of the trial start date. And for added measure, they cried foul hard enough to demand the case be dismissed for abuse of discovery.

People freaked out at first, but very quickly it became clear that this was a nothing burger. In his response, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg noted that there were only some 270 documents that were actually pertinent to the case. The rest were duplicates of things already produced or wholly irrelevant documents.

A tranche of 270 documents is a lot different than 100,000 and is no reason to delay the case for a whole 90 days. As of the time of this writing, the court hasn't issued a ruling, but most legal experts are expecting the case to go back on track for some time in April with no further delay from this dump of documents.

Great exSPACtations

On Friday, I wrote more extensively about the issues and challenges around Trump suddenly coming into a lot of money, at least on paper, due to his share of Trump Media, which is soon to be a publicly traded company. Trump's shares of the company are valued at around $3 billion, but as I mentioned Friday, there's a catch: He can't actually sell any shares for six months without a special agreement with the company, and even if he could obtain that, which seems likely, such a move might tank the stock out the gate and invite short sellers to swarm.

Following the publication of my piece, the price of Digital World Acquisition Company, the SPAC that will take Trump Media public, fell some 14 percent on the news the deal was approved. That indicates some skittishness among the shareholders.

It's unlikely that Trump could use his shares in Trump Media to secure a loan large enough to cover the bond. Those shares remain highly speculative, and the underlying company isn't very healthy. Indeed, it only brought in a few million dollars in revenue last year, versus tens of million in expenses. The only reason the stock value is high is because of wild speculation, and as financial journalist Stephanie Ruhle noted, banks generally don't like to secure loans against something like that:

Who would lend big $$ against a meme stock w/NO real revenue or profit especially one dependent on one man - plus the shares are locked up for 6 months absent a waiver.  

What's the biz plan?

Maybe if his millions of followers sign up for a $7 per month membership? 

Tough putt

Still, it's possible Trump could get permission from the board to sell at least some of his shares to cover the bond, and that he could do so without causing a stampede for the exits. But speculative meme stocks operate on vibes alone, and this is one vibe Trump might not want to test.



--
****
Juan Matute
     (New link as of 23 March - click on it)
― The Lincoln Project


Sunday, March 24, 2024

Something to Know - 24 March

When searching for something interesting, one often finds stories or articles which are completely interesting and a waste of time.  Such is this story.  A cursory glance and started off as an invitation to read more, which I did.  I will pass this on to you.   It has nothing to do with politics or socially important trends.   It involves one guy who upends a big hotel in a city that is not designed to make rules and ordinances that allow for such a ridiculous string of events.   So, if you want to stay indoors while it is cold and rainy outside, this might give you a chuckle of wonderment.


The Hotel Guest Who Wouldn't Leave

Mickey Barreto's five-year stay cost him only $200.57. Now it might cost him his freedom.


By Matthew Haag

Matthew Haag interviewed Mickey Barreto a half-dozen times and spent a night at the New Yorker Hotel.
March 24, 2024

On a June afternoon in 2018, a man named Mickey Barreto checked into the New Yorker Hotel. He was assigned Room 2565, a double-bed accommodation with a view of Midtown Manhattan almost entirely obscured by an exterior wall. For a one-night stay, he paid $200.57.

But he did not check out the next morning. Instead, he made the once-grand hotel his full-time residence for the next five years, without ever paying another cent.
In a city where every inch of real estate is picked over and priced out, and where affordable apartments are among the rarest of commodities, Mr. Barreto had perhaps the best housing deal in New York City history.
Now, that deal could land him in prison.
The story of how Mr. Barreto, a California transplant with a taste for wild conspiracy theories and a sometimes tenuous grip on reality, gained and then lost the rights to Room 2565 might sound implausible — another tale from a man who claims without evidence to be the first cousin, 11 times removed, of Christopher Columbus's oldest son.


But it's true.
Whatever his far-fetched beliefs, Mr. Barreto, now 49, was right about one thing: an obscure New York City rent law that provided him with many a New Yorker's dream.

On that summer afternoon nearly six years ago, Mr. Barreto walked through the hotel's revolving door on Eighth Avenue and entered a lobby centered by a 20-foot Art Deco chandelier, a nod to the hotel's geometric architecture.
When it opened in 1930, to great fanfare, the New Yorker Hotel was not just the largest in the city but also the second largest in the world. It was an opulent hotel of the future, with 92 telephone operators, a power generating plant and a radio with four channels in each room.
Today, the mystique has faded, though the property still attracts tourists with its central location. Less than half the rooms are open to guests, and the hallway carpet is tattered and lined with brightly lit vending machines of sodas and snacks. Most of the building is occupied by followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah who bought the hotel in 1976 and made it his organization's headquarters.


Even by New York City standards, the room to which Mr. Barreto was assigned was small, just under 200 square feet. The beds consumed most of the maroon and gold carpeted space. A tiny closet could fit a handful of garments. There was also a 42-inch TV with free HBO.
Over the course of several recent interviews, Mr. Barreto described what happened next — events that led to a yearslong ordeal for the hotel.
In conversation, Mr. Barreto vacillates between lucid and unstable. He said he experiences panic attacks and seizures but insisted he had never been diagnosed with a mental illness — even as he claimed to be the chief of an Indian tribe he founded in Brazil.
Much of Mr. Barreto's story is corroborated by years of court records, but one crucial moment comes from only his account: On that first night, he settled into his room, high above Midtown, along with his partner, Matthew Hannan. Before that night, Mr. Barreto says, Mr. Hannan had mentioned, in passing, a peculiar fact about affordable housing rules that pertain to New York City hotels.
With their laptops open, he claimed, they explored whether the New Yorker Hotel was subject to the rule, a little-known section of a state housing law, the Rent Stabilization Act.


Passed in 1969, the law created a system of rent regulation across the city. But also subject to the law was a swath of hotel rooms, specifically those in large hotels built before 1969, whose rooms could be rented for less than $88 a week in May 1968.
According to the law, a hotel guest could become a permanent resident by requesting a lease at a discounted rate. And any guest-turned-resident also had to be allowed access to the same services as a nightly guest, including room service, housekeeping and the use of facilities, like the gym.
The room becomes, essentially, a rent-subsidized apartment inside a hotel.
Despite the reasonable assumption that what he was undertaking had been orchestrated from the start, Mr. Barreto claimed the idea only took shape when his and Mr. Hannan's online search stumbled upon the 27th line of a 295-page spreadsheet titled "List of Manhattan Buildings Containing Stabilized Units."
According to court documents, Mr. Barreto left his room the next morning, rode the elevator to the lobby and greeted a hotel employee at the front desk. He handed over a letter addressed to the manager: He wanted a six-month lease.
The employee dialed the manager, and after a brief exchange, Mr. Barreto was told there was no such thing as a lease at the hotel and that without booking another night, he would have to vacate the room by noon. The couple did not remove their belongings, so the bellhops did — and Mr. Barreto headed to New York City Housing Court in Lower Manhattan and sued the hotel.


In a three-page, handwritten affidavit dated June 22, 2018, Mr. Barreto cited state laws, local codes and a past court case in arguing that his request for a lease made him a "permanent resident of the hotel." Removal of his items amounted to an illegal eviction, he said.
At a hearing on July 10, in the absence of any hotel representatives to oppose the lawsuit, the judge, Jack Stoller, ruled in Mr. Barreto's favor. Judge Stoller not only agreed with his arguments; he even cited the same case law as Mr. Barreto and ordered the hotel "to restore petitioner to possession of the subject premises forthwith by providing him with a key."
Mr. Barreto returned to Room 2565 within days, now as a resident of the hotel — and soon, as its new owner.

Back in their room days after the ruling, the couple read Judge Stoller's ruling over and over. In it, there was no order that the hotel provide a lease, no limit on their stay, no suggestion that rent was due.



But one word was mentioned throughout: possession. Mr. Barreto was given "final judgment of possession."
Mr. Barreto said he called the court to ask someone to explain what exactly that meant.
"You have possession," Mr. Barreto — sharply and slowly stressing every syllable of the final word — said he was told. "You're not a renter. You have possession of a building."
And how is possession of real estate recorded? In New York City, it is at the Department of Finance.
With the judge's order in hand, Mr. Barreto and Mr. Hannan visited the department's Lower Manhattan offices. Mr. Barreto said he asked a clerk about putting Room 2565 in his name — as a new homeowner would — but was told that would be impossible because the hotel, unlike apartments, was not split up in city records by rooms.


The property had one entity on file, the hotel itself, identified in city records as Block 758, Lot 37. So, citing the judge's order, Mr. Barreto filled out paperwork declaring his ownership of that.
"If I have the right to register it all," Mr. Barreto recalled thinking, "then I will register it all."
In New York City, a change of ownership is recorded in the voluminous Automated City Register Information System, or ACRIS, which holds the real estate records for every property. Thousands of documents like deeds and mortgages are received and published daily, too many for the city's Department of Finance employees to scrutinize before posting online.
Mr. Barreto tried repeatedly to file for a deed, but was rejected over various technicalities. After his sixth attempt, a clerk told him he needed to contact the sheriff's office. (In New York City, the sheriff's office is a division of the Finance Department.)
Mr. Barreto said he spoke to a sheriff's deputy, an investigator in the department, who asked why he was filing so many times. He said he responded that he had been given possession of the property but was having technical difficulties.


At the same time, the hotel's owners had filed their own lawsuit to evict Mr. Barreto, claiming the hotel was exempt from the housing law's hotel provision. Ultimately, the lawyers could not produce documentation from May 1968 to prove the hotel's weekly rate was at the time more than $88 a week. The judge dismissed the suit.
Meanwhile, Mr. Barreto filed for a deed for a seventh time. It was accepted.
On the afternoon of May 17, 2019, nearly a year after Mr. Barreto booked his one-night stay, he was identified in ACRIS as the owner of the New Yorker Hotel, a 1.2 million-square-foot building.

Mr. Barreto now had a recorded deed showing he had ownership of the hotel, but the true and only owner since 1976 was still the Unification Church.
Mr. Barreto's next moves went far beyond the rights of a now permanent guest.
He immediately fired off an email to a lawyer for the hotel, demanding to know about the property's recent finances, and included a claim that he was owed $15 million in profits.


"That payment is past due," he wrote, "and is due immediately."
A few days later, another demand: The 38th floor needed to be cleared of guests. "I need to do an inspection of the building with my architect ASAP," he said.
The lawyer quickly responded, "What are you referring to?"
"I have ownership rights in that building," Mr. Barreto replied. "That's what I'm referring to."
He also wrote about wanting to make upgrades, including to the revolving door at the hotel's entrance on Eighth Avenue between West 34th and West 35th Streets. "That area looks like a war zone," he said.
While the lawyer scrambled to file a lawsuit to revert ownership of the hotel, Mr. Barreto sent off an email to Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, which manages the property, notifying it that he now owned it. A Wyndham representative asked for a litany of legal and sales documents to be sent as proof. (They were not.)
Mr. Barreto also sent a memo to M&T Bank, the hotel's lender, and asked for all accounts to be put into his name. (They were not.)


Next, Mr. Barreto walked into the Tick Tock Diner, which is connected to the lobby by double doors. He dropped off a letter addressed to the owners. Monthly rent checks, he wrote, should be sent to a new address: Room 2565.
One of the diner's owners, Alex Sgourgos, recognized Mr. Barreto. Since he had moved into the hotel, Mr. Barreto, along with Mr. Hannan, frequently ate at the Tick Tock, a 'round-the-clock restaurant styled as a 1950s diner with neon lights, red booths and a laminated menu. The two men often ordered breakfast, sandwiches and chicken entrees, Mr. Sgourgos said, and always paid in cash.
"They looked like strange guys," he added.
After reading the letter, Mr. Sgourgos called the Unification Church, which told him to ignore Mr. Barreto's demand. The couple continued to eat at the restaurant, he said, and never mentioned the rent payments again.

Two days after Mr. Barreto walked into the Tick Tock, the lawyer for the hotel was in court, explaining the situation and pleading with a judge to issue an order to stop Mr. Barreto from representing himself as the owner.


The lawyer, Matthew B. Meisel, said his law firm partners had "never seen such an egregious set of circumstances."
In court, Mr. Meisel said he believed that Mr. Barreto was under investigation by prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office, though he did not specify for what.
Across the country, it is not uncommon for overworked municipal recorders to accept property filings under the assumption that they are legitimate, and for real estate speculators to take advantage of the system.
But Bill Lienhard, a lawyer who has represented many victims of deed theft in New York City, said he was stunned by the apparent ease with which Mr. Barreto transferred a 41-story Manhattan hotel into his name.
"Boy," he said, "this takes the cake for the city's record department not paying attention."
Representing himself in court, Mr. Barreto insisted he had done nothing wrong. "As for me proclaiming to people I was the owner, I only did that after I had the deed," he said in court.


A few months later, the judge issued a ruling: "The subject deed is a forged deed by all accounts," he wrote. Mr. Barreto did not own the property.
But that was not the end.

Despite the judge's ruling about ownership, Mr. Barreto was still a legal resident of the hotel.
His home, Room 2565, is near the end of a long narrow hallway that zigs and zags from the elevators. Around the corner is Room 2549, where Muhammad Ali spent the night in 1971 after losing the so-called Fight of the Century to Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden.
With no job, Mr. Barreto said, he spent hours in his room every day, researching his family's history in Brazil, where he was born and raised in the southern river town of Uruguaiana. He has an angular, youthful face and military-style haircut and fidgets with his clothes as he talks.
A relative said that he had excelled in school in Brazil, had never gotten into trouble and moved to the United States in 1990s. As a teenager, he was considered particularly gifted — the smartest child in the family.


But in recent years, he developed an obsession with his genealogy, claiming to have uncovered a direct connection to Christopher Columbus through Portuguese royalty. In Civil Court, he started to invoke the explorer's name — "My family name 'Muniz Barreto Columbus,'" he wrote in a 2021 filing.
Mr. Barreto also delved into the Unification Church's origins on the Korean Peninsula, its expanding economic interests on other continents and its business connections with North Korea. He started to believe that leaders of the church were sending its income, including from the hotel, to North Korea in violation of sanctions imposed by the United States.
In an interview, Mr. Barreto said that his concerns about the finances of the religious organization became the main driver for staying in the hotel. He called it his patriotic duty as an American citizen, likening his efforts to someone having been able to stop one of the hijackers before the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I'm sorry I disrupted your attempt to finance weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Barreto said. "It's Mickey Barreto versus North Korea."
While Mr. Moon, who died in 2012, was born in what is now North Korea, his church's current ties to that country are unclear; it once operated factories and a hotel there. The church came under intense scrutiny in Japan after the 2022 assassination of Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister. The alleged killer believed Mr. Abe had ties to the church, which has long been accused of preying on vulnerable people for donations, in Japan and elsewhere


Mr. Barreto voiced similar claims to relatives, about both the church and his family's genealogy, leaving them confused about whether his statements were tethered to reality.
"It was something that was just hard to believe," said the relative, who asked to remain anonymous because of sensitivity within the family. "I was thinking maybe it's true, I don't know. With Mickey, it's hard to say."
A spokeswoman at the Unification Church declined to comment about Mr. Barreto's allegations, his residency or the lawsuits.

Mr. Barreto had prevailed in two separate court proceedings; he had a right to a rent-stabilized lease for a room at the New Yorker Hotel. He had access to room service, housekeeping and all the hotel's facilities.


But he refused to sign a lease — or pay rent.
The hotel's first offer of a lease, according to him, exceeded the legal rent for a rent-stabilized room. He also declined additional offers over the years, claiming he was concerned about the church's finances.
Finally, last year, the hotel's owner succeeded in court against him. A judge ruled in the hotel's favor, citing Mr. Barreto's refusal to pay or sign a lease. He was evicted in July.
Even while that second eviction case had been working its way through Housing Court, Mr. Barreto had not stopped portraying himself as the property owner. In September, he submitted another deed showing that the hotel had been transferred once again into his name, and that the city had accepted it.
The transfer caused the hotel to lose a property tax exemption, resulting in a $2.9 million increase on its property tax bill.
Back in court, the hotel's lawyers urged a judge to hold Mr. Barreto in contempt, and a judge signaled on Feb. 7 that there would be another hearing in the case.


A week later, police officers showed up before sunrise at the apartment on the Upper West Side where Mr. Barreto had been staying with Mr. Hannan.
Mr. Barreto was arrested and arraigned later that morning in a Manhattan court on 24 counts — including 14 felony fraud counts — in what prosecutors said was a criminal scheme to claim ownership of the hotel. Mr. Hannan, who Mr. Barreto said was not involved beyond staying with him at the hotel for much of five years, was not charged or accused of any crime.
Mr. Barreto is now awaiting trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and facing several years in prison if convicted. In jail before he was released on his own recognizance, Mr. Barreto said he used his one phone call to dial the White House, leaving a message about his whereabouts.
There was no reason to believe the White House had any interest in the case or any idea who Mickey Barreto was. But you could never quite tell with Mickey — he'd been right once before.


Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Matthew Haag writes about the intersection of real estate and politics in the New York region. He has been a journalist for two decades. 

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Juan Matute
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