Homeless Men Were Recruited to Pose as Displaced Vets
ALBANY, N.Y. — The state Attorney General’s Office said Friday it is looking into reports that a nonprofit organization in the Hudson Valley erroneously claimed that homeless veterans placed in hotels were kicked out last week by migrants bused there from New York City.
The accusation that about 20 veterans were tossed from a Newburgh hotel in Orange County to make way for the asylum-seekers drew national headlines and broad condemnation. But the claims soon began to unravel when the hotel showed proof that it was not housing homeless veterans and that no one was displaced when the migrants arrived.
Sharon Toney-Finch, a disabled veteran who founded the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, said she was misguided in her initial understanding that veterans under her group’s care were moved from the hotel.
“For us not to confirm where they were kicked out of or removed from, that was YIT’s fault,” she said
The situation also ensnared the local Assemblymember Brian Maher (R-Orange County) who railed against the alleged displacement of veterans after he said he believed Toney-Finch’s story that he said was backed up by hotel receipts she showed him from people who stayed at the Crossroads Hotel. But he told the Times Union in Albany on Thursday that he was tricked, saying he was “devastated and disheartened.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/19/new-york-prosecutors-hotel-veterans-migrants-00097886
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