MONTGOMERY – Assemblyman Brian Maher (R-Montgomery) spent the last week claiming that 20 veterans were kicked out of a hotel to make way for an influx of migrants being brought up from NYC. On Thursday afternoon, he admitted that the whole situation was a series of lies.
Last Friday Maher teamed up with Sharon Toney-Finch of the YIT Foundation who told him that a number of veterans were being displaced as a result of arriving migrants. Together, the two began a campaign of denouncing the Crossroads Hotel in the Town of Newburgh where the veterans were allegedly staying. Toney-Finch, the director of the YIT Foundation, said she had housed 20 veterans at the Crossroads but the homeless veterans were told last Thursday night that they needed to check out on Friday. That has been denied by hotel management. Maher was steadfast in supporting Finch. Last Friday he denounced the hotel by name and used the incident, debunked by Mid-Hudson News, to attack the federal government’s management of the migrant/asylum-seeker crisis. He also used the false situation to introduce legislation to prohibit the displacement of homeless veterans to make way for migrants.
According to a statement by Maher made to the Albany Times-Union last night, he was duped by Toney-Finch regarding the whole situation. He claims that it wasn’t until around 3:15 p.m. on Thursday afternoon after waiting three hours outside of a bank for Toney-Finch to produce financial records of the hotel stays, that he realized t4he whole situation was made up.
This report seemingly conflicts with a press release from Maher’s office from Friday, May 12 when the original story of the displaced veterans broke in the New York Post. Maher’s release said he met the impacted veterans, saying “My team and I personally visited the veterans,” and described the interaction with the vets, saying “We thanked them for their service and apologized for their treatment.”
The admission comes after Maher used the fake crisis to garner front-page coverage in the New York Post last week and he also appeared on Fox News, appealing for donors to protect veterans by donating to the YIT Foundation.
After claiming the veterans were kicked out of the Crossroads Hotel, Toney-Finch told Mid-Hudson News that the group had been relocated to the Wingate by Wyndham Hotel in Fishkill. Maher, in speaking with the Albany Times-Union, said that he met two veterans and their driver at the Fishkill location last Friday. Mid-Hudson News spoke with the Fishkill hotel’s manager Wednesday. He said that he had three veterans staying at his facility and all three were clients of Mental Health America of Dutchess County (MHA Dutchess). When asked if any were clients of YIT, he said that no YIT-serviced veterans had been there “in a long time.” When confronted with that fact, Toney-Finch said she had relocated the 20 clients to a hotel in Danbury for privacy reasons.
The veterans Maher claims to have met in Fishkill allegedly told him they had been kicked out of the Crossroads Hotel.
During an interview with the general manager of the Crossroads on Wednesday, she staunchly defended its claim that no veterans had been displaced from the hotel. “There were no veterans at the hotel, none were kicked out, and no other guests were told to vacate.” The hotel does have a group of asylum seekers there, but the seven-year general manager said the hotel is not even booked to capacity and rooms are available.
Maher also alleges that he is asking the New York State Attorney General and the Orange County District Attorney to investigate the non-profit YIT Foundation.
Aaron Narraph Fernando, communications lead for the grassroots organization For The Many issued a statement saying, “We are disgusted, but not surprised, to learn that The New York Post’s front page story pitting homeless veterans against asylum seekers was a complete lie,” in reference to the story featuring Maher and Finch promoting the falsehood. “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.”
