A man who rented just one bedroom in a Hell's Kitchen apartment pleaded guilty to pocketing roughly $50,000 in a scheme involving at least 17 people. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Nicholas Fuelling's guilty plea, saying Fuelling had advertised the Midtown Manhattan apartment for sublease.
According to Alvin Bragg
, the indictment charged Fuelling with five counts of grand larceny and one count of scheme to defraud. Bragg's office announced his guilty plea. Fuelling is identified with Fair Oaks, California. The grand larceny counts are class D felonies and the scheme-to-defraud count is a class E felony, per the same announcement.
The scam dates back to August 2025, when Fuelling advertised a sublease of the apartment on Facebook Marketplace even though he had only rented one of its two bedrooms since 2022. He went on to advertise both bedrooms for sublease without the building landlord's approval, and five individuals signed sublease agreements with him for the same unit between August 8 and August 16, 2025.
Thousands Paid for an Apartment No One Could Enter
Four of the five prospective subletters paid approximately $3,200 each to sublet a single bedroom, while the fifth paid $6,400 to sublet both bedrooms, according to the case against Fuelling. Those five renters expected to move in at the end of August 2025, for stays ranging from six months to a year. Instead, none of them were able to move into the apartment, and some were left effectively homeless as a result.
Fuelling did not return nearly $20,000 collected from the five alleged victims and stopped responding to them. An earlier indictment in the case, detailed by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, had described a narrower version of the scheme involving nearly $20,000 allegedly stolen from five individuals, with sublease agreements signed between approximately August 8 and August 16, 2025, at the same address; the guilty plea announcement describes the broader scope of at least 17 individuals and about $50,000 in losses.
That earlier filing also detailed how the alleged scam played out for those first five renters: four paid about $3,200 each for a single bedroom while a fifth paid $6,400 for both, and none were able to move in, with at least one left effectively homeless. The address at the center of the case has been reported elsewhere as a $3,200-a-month, two-bedroom, two-bathroom sublet at 334 West 47th Street, according to West Side Spirit.
Prosecutors Point to a Pattern of Tenant Targeting
Assistant District Attorney Alexander Phillips of the office's Housing and Tenant Protection Unit is handling the prosecution. Bragg addressed scarce housing and fraud, and his office listed 212-335-3300 and [email protected].
News4JAX reported on an alleged Jacksonville rental scam in which JSO said a woman used Facebook Marketplace to pocket thousands through rental scams.
