Assemblyman recants tale that Newburgh hotel evicted homeless vets to board asylum seekers

It was a scoop that was sure to stoke more outrage.

"VETS KICKED OUT FOR MIGRANTS," the New York Post blasted on its front page last Saturday, an exclusive that claimed three Orange County hotels had evicted 20 homeless veterans to open their rooms for asylum seekers bused there from New York City.

But The Crossroads Hotel in the town of Newburgh - the only hotel of the three that had actually taken in refugees - has adamantly denied it was even lodging vets. And the tabloid-perfect story, which raced through the media and fueled angry calls and visits to the hotels, has gotten more tangled this week, with further doubts raised that it was true.

Assemblyman Brian Maher, the Orange County Republican who helped disseminate the news, stood by it and vowed to mount a defense at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. He promised to present documents and some of the evicted veterans themselves to make his case.

"I have met and talked to these veterans," Maher said in a statement. "We have bank statements showing purchases were made to the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh and today we will be making veterans available to speak to the press. We look forward to having any questions answered on this issue today."

But that never occurred. Maher, a former Montgomery town supervisor who won his Assembly seat in November, held no press conference, didn't respond to messages, and issued no further statements as of 9 p.m. on Thursday.

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But he did speak to the Albany Times Union. The newspaper reported Thursday night that Maher admitted in an emotional phone call that the story was false, saying he had been deceived and felt "devastated and disheartened" after making that discovery.

“This is something I believe hurt a lot of people,” Maher told the Times Union.

Where did the information about the veterans come from?

Maher, who went on Fox News on Monday to decry the alleged displacement of vets, said he got his information from a woman in his town who runs a charity dedicated to premature babies and needy veterans. Sharon Toney-Finch, an Army veteran who was badly injured in Iraq and awarded a Purple Heart, had said her organization - the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation for Preemies, or YIT Foundation - was paying for the lodging of the allegedly evicted vets.

According to her account to the Post, 15 vets were forced to leave The Crossroads, where New York City has placed 110 asylum seekers since last week. Another five, she said, were evicted from two hotels in the town of Wallkill: a Super 8 by Wyndham and a Hampton Inn.

“Over the last week, many of our homeless veterans that YIT provides services for were informed that they had to leave their temporary housing," Toney-Finch said in a press release that Maher's office sent 20 minutes after the Post's story went online on May 12. "Our veterans were housed in several hotels that were preparing to receive migrants from New York City. Thankfully, my team and I were able to scramble and find new temporary housing for these veterans."

Toney-Finch declined to comment when reached on Thursday, referring all questions to Maher.

How did the hotels respond to the allegations?

An attorney for the Crossroads smacked down the accusation in a letter on Wednesday to state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Sciortino, the Orange County judge hearing three lawsuits attempting to stop the boarding of asylum seekers in the county.

"There are not now, and never were, any group of veterans at the hotel and certainly none were kicked out to make way for migrant asylum seekers," attorney Todd Soloway said in the letter.

A spokeswoman for the Hampton Inn also denies the hotel was even housing veterans for Toney-Finch's organization, or had evicted vets or anyone else to house asylum seekers. The hotel hadn't even been contacted by New York City about taking in migrants, and wouldn't do so if asked, she said.

"We have no idea how our hotel got named in any of this," spokeswoman Luz Pesick told The Journal News/lohud, noting that the Hampton Inn had never housed veterans on behalf of Toney-Finch's group on any previous occasions either. "We're not booting anyone out of hotels to make way for other folks."

An employee of the Super 8 in Wallkill denied the evicted-vets claim, saying, "That's definitely false information."

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What has been the fallout?

The Mid-Hudson News, which had also reported that hotels had evicted vets to board asylum seekers, all but repudiated the story in a follow-up piece posted Wednesday night. That article documented changes in Toney-Finch's account and displayed a hotel receipt apparently given to the reporter as proof, which the article suggested had been doctored.

The tale had prompted plenty of fury by then, with elected officials blasting the evictions and even introducing a bill in Albany to prohibit hotels from booting vets or other vulnerable guests to make room for migrants.

On Tuesday night, a man turned up at a different Newburgh hotel that has taken in asylum seekers - not the one that allegedly evicted vets - and made a remark that caused enough alarm for the staff to call the police.

According to town Police Chief Bruce Campbell, an older, heavy-set man first approached someone outside the Ramada by Wyndham and asked, "Are you one of the veterans that got kicked out?" Then he went inside and spoke to an employee in the lobby, saying as he left that he was going to return with a group of veterans.

The evicted-vets story continues to circulate for political gain. On Thursday, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler's campaign blast-texted a fundraising pitch that displays last weekend's New York Post headline and rips Democratic leaders who are "throwing out our brave veterans and have given their rooms to unvetted migrants."

It asks supporters to sign Lawler's "PRIORITIZE AMERICAN VETERANS Petition."

For the Many, an activist group that has welcomed the asylum seekers, blasted media outlets and politicians for trumpeting claims it said were now discredited, saying those who were spreading the tale were either "incompetent or outright liars."

"Either way, the damage is already done," said Aaron Narraph Fernando, a spokesman for the organization. "This fake story of George Santos proportions has already made its way into the national media and kicked up a storm of anti-immigrant hatred. It has turned local residents against migrants, sending xenophobic, racist outrage toward asylum seekers who are simply trying to make a new home for themselves in Newburgh."

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on New York State Team: Newburgh NY hotel took in immigrants, evicted vets story was untrue