[imagesource: Micah Gantman]
After reading about this wild Hamptons ‘#Sprayathon’ party, you’ll understand why Airbnb is waging a war on parties.
In 2016, a man threw a Wolf of Wall Street-style party at an Airbnb and ended up getting sued because of the damage caused to the property.
The culprit? Brett Barna, a former portfolio manager at Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management.
Former, because after pulling off the insane shenanigans, Barna was fired from the firm, per CNBC, which reported about the over-the-top July Fourth hoedown at the time.
The company told CNBC that Barna was no longer employed by Moore Capital Management because his “personal judgment was inconsistent with the firm’s values”.
He was slapped with a $1 million lawsuit which is bound to make any lingering hangover worse.
That’s Barna with the beard in the centre, in his prime:
He had hosted the all-day pool party at a $20 million mansion located in the summer playground for New York City’s wealthiest.
Barna rented it off Airbnb for $27 000 (just under R500 000) from Omar Amanat, the owner of the mansion, per DMARGE, who as you can imagine, was not so chuffed in the aftermath:
Apparently, bikini-clad women danced the night away, midgets roamed around while toting ‘champagne guns’ and rapper Ace Hood performed to the 500+ guests in attendance.
Exhibit A and B:
The party became so out of hand that images and footage went viral and it was soon dubbed ‘#Sprayathon’ (from the two-minute mark the footage repeats, by the way):
Barna had convinced Amanat that he was renting the mansion for a get-together but allegedly lied about the nature of the party:
“Brett [Barna] came to me dropping Louis Bacon’s name and saying he was a big deal with the Robin Hood Foundation. He said there would be 50 people at the event and it was [a fundraiser] for animal rescue. But the only animals there were the people, a thousand of them.”
“They drowned themselves in champagne, they had midgets they threw in the pool, they broke into the house, trashed the furniture, art was stolen, we found used condoms. So many people were there that the concrete around the pool crumbled and fell into the water. It was like Jersey Shore meets a frat party.”
The fun and games obviously caused major damage to the property, which forced Amanat to plan to sue Barna, although it’s unclear what happened with the lawsuit.
Amanat was arrested by the FBI for unrelated fraud charges a few weeks after the party.
That should be shocking, but it’s not.
Barna later suggested that he managed to walk away without paying the party fine, telling The New York Times that it was just “good clean fun” that “raised money for charity… Nothing illegal happened and no one complained.”
Alrighty, if you say so.
