Report: Migrant Family in NYC Allegedly Fabricate Molestation Claim for Better Accommodation

A migrant family at the Hotel Mint in Queens, New York, falsely accused another migrant staying in the facility of molesting a 7-year-old girl to get the larger room he was staying in, the New York Post reported Friday.

“I don’t know why you should accuse someone,” a hotel worker not on duty at the time of the incident told the Post. “That’s really bad to do that to a child but to accuse someone of that, I don’t know why you should accuse someone.”

According to the report, police responded to the hotel to break up a fight between a 34-year-old migrant and the older brother of another family’s twin 7-year-old girls after the family accused the man of holding a knife to the neck of one of the girls and then touching the private areas of her twin.

Police arrested the man but said the investigation led them to believe the minor victims “were coached” and “rehearsed” what to tell police to get the man arrested so the family could move into his room, according to the report.

The Post reported the man was released from custody Friday after his cell phone GPS and hotel video surveillance showed he was not at the hotel at the time of the alleged attack on Wednesday.

A Venezuelan couple told the Post that they heard a commotion Wednesday night, but retreated to their room and locked the door.

“Last night there [was] shouting, fighting, outside … a man was shouting at another man in front of [the lobby] door but we [went] inside and locked the door,” the woman told the Post Thursday, adding that there were “many children” staying there and she didn’t know the people involved.

The couple also told the news outlet that things at the hotel were “wild,” and they still do not feel safe even after changing shelters.

“It is wild here,” the man said in the report. “At the shelter before, there [was] trouble every night. We moved here because I complained about the shelter. It was not safe. I could not sleep. This is wild and there is trouble. I do not let [my wife] walk without me.”

Politico reported that New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that the city’s right-to-shelter policy should not apply to the large influx of illegal migrants flooding the city.

“I don’t believe the right to shelter applies to a migrant crisis,” Politico reported Adams saying during an appearance on WABC’s “Sid & Friends in the Morning,” referring to a mandate dating back to 1981 that the city provide shelter beds to anyone in need.