Addicted, Homeless and Running from the Cops: How High-Flying Event Planner Hid Out at the Waldorf Astoria

VIDEO – RICHES TO RAGS TO THE STEPS –

Sept. 30, 2023 – “I was headed downhill fast. If the judge hadn’t sent me to Rikers I might not be alive,” Norman told The Post.

Born in Oregon, he was living his dream in Manhattan working as a contractor at Fashion Week for eight years from 2004 to 2012 as part of the hotel chain’s sponsorship.

But an addiction to methamphetamines got him blacklisted from the event for selling front-row seats to shady characters for $500 a pop, he recalled.

“They said, ‘If you’re going to bring people to Fashion Week and have them sit in the front row please have them look less like prostitutes,’” Norman recalled. ver the next months he lost all his money, and his apartment in Midtown, and found himself running from the law after missing court dates on charges of embezzlement, credit card fraud, forgery, and grand larceny, documents show.

He remembered searching for shelter on a bitter night in January 2014 — and picking the St. Regis Hotel in Midtown.

“I still had an overnight bag with me and it was a nice one and I looked decent,” he recalled. “I walked right in.”