We’ve seen this one before: a man posing as a broker conned nine women out of deposits for an East Village apartment he wasn’t licensed to rent.
Police say a man using the names David Horowitz and Michael Bryant offered an apartment at 321 East Sixth Street on Craigslist and managed to trick nine women into giving him cash deposits of $2,200 each.
The suspect, shown at left, kept the scam going from January 16 to February 1, police say. He’s wanted for grand larceny.
It’s hard to blame the victims for handing their cash over to a total stranger — the apartment is right next to David Schwimmer’s place, and an old (legit) for a duplex in the townhouse notes that it was once “once owned by Andy Warhol in the late 1960s.” Plus, they were getting a bargain. An AirBNB listing (which notes the building was actually owned by Warhol cohort Paul Morrissey, and used as a film studio) offers a unit for $6,000 a month.