Assemblyman claims he was caught in web of lies

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…