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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mick Mørmøny who wrote (69641)	12/30/2006 10:16:32 AM
From: Mick Mørmøny	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

He's locked out of hotel con Tried to steal SoHo Grand deed BY JOSE MARTINEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Turned out his plan to own the SoHo Grand wasn't so grand after all. A Staten Island man allegedly tried to steal the trendy $76 million hotel's deed by filing phony papers with the city. But the con failed to make a hotelier out of Kouadio Kouassi, who faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the bizarre scam, authorities said yesterday. "He may now find himself sleeping in less glamourous accommodations," said Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city Department of Investigation. An employee with the city Department of Finance alerted investigators after Kouassi allegedly tried several times to file paperwork that would have transferred ownership of the hotel to him. "The documents were not filled out in a professional way or not filled out at all," Gill Hearn said. "It was just not the kind of filing you would see if it was a real commercial transaction." Opened in 1996, the chic hotel on West Broadway has long been a celebrity haunt, attracting the likes of supermodel Heidi Klum, hip-hop mogul Sean (Diddy) Combs and actor Kevin Spacey. One of its trademark perks is that guests can request that a pet goldfish be placed in their room. The legitimate owners of the SoHo Grand, where nightly room rates start at $399, were in the dark about the scam. "They knew nothing of this guy," Gill Hearn said. "It was just a very brazen, foolish game he was playing." The hotel's ownership group, New Jersey-based Hartz Mountain Industries, could not be reached for comment. Kouassi lives in a working-class Staten Island neighborhood where neighbors described him as a reserved man. He was behind bars in Manhattan last night, waiting to be arraigned on the charge of attempted grand larceny. "We don't really know what he was thinking," Gill Hearn said. With Mike Jaccarino Originally published on December 30, 2006 nydailynews.com