A man prosecutors describe as a phony real estate broker admitted this month to stealing more than $100,000 from nearly two dozen New Yorkers seeking rentals.<\/p>\n
Juan Valoy pleaded guilty in two cases this month \u2014 one in the Bronx July 2, and then another in Manhattan this week. The boroughs\u2019 district attorney\u2019s offices say he stole around $25,000 from three victims in Manhattan, and $80,000 from 18 victims in the Bronx by showing apartments he didn\u2019t own or have any rights to, and then fraudulently taking application fees, security deposits and first months\u2019 rents.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say most of his victims were Hispanic and primarily Spanish-speaking. In one case, the Manhattan DA\u2019s office said, a woman had moved out of her previous home and tried to move into a Bronx apartment Valoy showed her with a young child \u2014 to find it was already occupied by someone else.<\/p>\n
In Manhattan, Valoy pleaded guilty to one count of grand larceny, under a plea deal that calls for him to be sentenced to 2 to 4 years in state prison on Sept. 9, DA Alvin Bragg said. In the Bronx case, Valoy pleaded to attempted burglary and scheme to defraud, and was sentenced to four years in prison followed by five years of supervised release, an assistant district attorney in that borough\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Yorkers trusted Juan Valoy to rent them apartments. He broke that trust by pocketing their money, leaving them without homes,\u201d Bragg said in a statement. \u201cJuan Valoy is facing time in state prison for his harmful conduct. Manhattan is facing a housing crisis, and we will prosecute those who exploit it for their own advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Manhattan and Bronx DAs, Valoy would show desperate prospective renters renovated apartments that he had no permission to rent, and take anywhere from $2,500 to $7,000 from each victim, telling them the money would ensure the space was held for them because there were many interested parties. He would then stop returning their calls, or refuse to refund them, both DAs said.<\/p>\n
In a pair of voluntary disclosure forms Bronx prosecutors provided to Gothamist, Valoy said the deposits for apartments were his source of income.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to work as a Realtor. Business went bad, and I had to make some money. I started showing apartments because I know how to be a Realtor,\u201d he said. \u201cI would have people fill out the application and submit them. It’s not my fault that the applications were not accepted and I cannot return the money because I spent it.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Bronx District Attorney\u2019s office, prosecutors there were presenting their case to a grand jury last year when Valoy stopped showing up for trial, and they learned he had started operating in Manhattan. They started working with the Manhattan District Attorney, and were able to locate him where he was hiding in various motels in Yonkers, Bronx officials said. He was arrested and bail was set for $150,000. According to the Bronx DA\u2019s office, Valoy was unable to make bail and is currently in Rikers.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t the first time Valoy has pleaded guilty to such crimes. More than a decade ago in 2014, Valoy was sentenced to up to 4 years in state prison for stealing thousands of dollars in an apartment scam in Washington Heights.<\/p>\n
An attorney for Valoy has not yet returned a message seeking comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man prosecutors describe as a phony real estate broker admitted this month to stealing more than $100,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-296610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}