Irish students left homeless in Brooklyn scam

Eight students scammed out of thousands in luxury loft apartment scam

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While the loft was apparently being renovated into an eight-bedroom apartment, Study and his friends were allowed to sleep on the floor of another apartment, which Eaddy and Barron used as an apartment too.

“It was getting crazy because the tenants in this apartment were becoming outraged that there was so many of us sleeping on their floor, so finally we were kicked out and had to find our own place with no money cause we had handed it over for the rent,” he explains.

The students were told that apartment would be ready to move into on June 15. That date was pushed back to 17, then to 20 then to 23, and finally they were told it would be the middle of July before it would be ready.

“At this stage we were becoming very frustrated and finding it very hard to live day to day because we had no money,” said the Limerick man.

They would visit the apartment on various occasions to see its progress, but there never was any.

“At one point they used the excuse that we couldn’t move in because the place was freshly painted and the fumes were too dangerous,” he said.

A trip to the apartment a few days later revealed dry walls that had not been painted. Trying to work and find a place to stay each night was becoming a challenge.

“I had a long way to travel to my job and then at times I didn’t know where I’d be sleeping that night,” he said.

His first job in Coney Island saw him bussing tables and earning $7 an hour. He was just about able to feed himself. He recently stared a job in a hotel in Times Square, but his weekly income is $270 a week.

“One night at 3 a.m. after work in Coney Island I went back to the apartment we were given to tide us over and these guys (Eaddy and Barron) told me I couldn’t stay there because the place was too full, so I had to take all my gear and ride the subway to a hostel on the Upper East Side,” he said.

The weekend of July 4 the students were told they could start to move in their gear. Finally light at the end of the tunnel they thought. That was until the Limerick student had dropped off his gear -- in the still unfinished loft -- and upon returning discovered that the place was locked up.

“I had no access of my bags or clothes for four days straight,” he shared.

At this stage the landlord of the building was made aware that Eaddy and Barron planned to sublet the lot as apartments and make a bit of money off it on the side.

According to the student, the landlord told them at a meeting last week that the building was for commercial business only and never intended or allowed legally to be turned into apartments. Eaddy and Barron had a verbal contract with the landlord to rent the loft for the purpose of shooting videos.

“We were stunned. Finally we were being told that our dream loft was never going to happen,” he said.

Eaddy and Barron would not return their calls, and finally after days of persistence he managed to get only $80 back from the two men. He is still waiting on the remainder of his money, as are the rest of the Irish students.

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