Security Officer Started Five Hotel Fires In Order To Free Up Time To Drink

A hotel security officer has been arrested, after he allegedly started numerous fires while he was on his break which freed up more time for his to drink on the job in a safe room.

Mariano Barbosa Jr., who was the director of security and fire safety director at Yotel hotel near Times Square, New York, set up a series of fires, which then shut down the building for numerous days.

This then left him time to get drunk in guest rooms while he was on the job, according to the New York Fire Department.

Barbosa was arrested on Friday by New York City fire marshals, and he was charged with setting five rubbish fires at Yotel over two years. These were apparently set in emergency exits, stairwells, and hallways at the 10th Avenue building.

He also reportedly set three fires at the Soho Grand Hotel on West Broadway when he previously worked there. He was employed at the establishment between 2009 and 2010 as a security guard, and he even set one blaze on New Year’s Day at 3 am, which stopped their partying from continuing.

A source told NY Daily News that Barbosa decided to start these fires as he knew that the hotel would have to be closed for days so that repairs could be carried out, which allowed him to take a vacation.

The insider added, “He started the fires to lighten his work load. Security directors get comp rooms at the hotel. After the fires, the hotel would be shut down for repairs and he would be in his comp room, boozing it up.”

Fire officials also added that the blazes were apparently started to “bring negative attention to the hotels and their nighttime crowds.”

Babosa had previously been named Yotel’s manager of the year in 2012, and his wife has leapt to his defence, insisting that “he even sleeps at the hotel so he can be there for work.”

[Image via Oleksandr Berezko/Shutterstock]