In a story confirming every stereotype about Wall Street bros who frequent the Hamptons, a thirtysomething hedge funder who organized a July 4th party complete with champagne guns, costumed midgets, and inflatable swans is being threatened with a lawsuit for destroying a multi-million dollar, Airbnb-rented mansion in Sag Harbor.
Some 12 hours after the New York Post outed Brett Barna as the host of the so-called #Sprayathon party, Moore Capital Management announced they had fired the 31-year-old portfolio manager (his “personal judgment was inconsistent with the firm’s values,” the company told CNBC).
The owner of the Sag Harbor estate claimed he met Barna in person ahead of the festivities—a charity fundraiser for a local animal shelter—and that the two drew up a contract stating that no more than 50 people would be in attendance.
Speaking under condition of anonymity, the owner told The Daily Beast he was impressed by Barna’s affiliation with the philanthropic Robin Hood Foundation (Barna co-hosted their Young Philanthropist Gala last summer) and his employment under billionaire hedge fund tycoon Louis Bacon.
“He was a polite gentleman who oozed credibility, so I just assumed he was hosting a nice event for a good cause,” the owner told The Daily Beast, adding that he sits on the board of several charities with Louis Bacon.
He was stunned, then, when Barna didn’t pay the roughly $27,000 rental fee they’d agreed on and ignored his repeated voice and text messages. Barna could not be reached for comment.
“If he’d paid me the rental fee he would be a douchebag but not a thief,” the owner said. “Now he’s a douchebag and a thief. I am absolutely preparing to sue. He probably thinks I’m trying to serve him right now, so he’s hiding,” he said, referring to Barna’s radio silence. “He had every opportunity to just make good and pay the bill.”
Beyond the damages to the property—destroyed furniture, a broken entry gate, stolen artwork, and a dislodged pool ledge, chunks of which were found floating in the pool—the owner said he was appalled by the celebratory, “post-aggrandizing” comments on guests’ Instagram posts.
“This was not Wolf of Wall Street glamour,” he said. “This was criminal behavior. This was destruction of property. A woman was found passed out inside the house the next morning and no one knew who she was. This is the type of fraternity culture that led to the Brock Turner incident,” he said, referring to the notorious Stanford rape case.
“There were probably 5,000 discarded bottles on the property, dozens of champagne and beer bottles in the pool itself,” the owner said of the scene post-party. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He claimed Barna assured him that all guests would be gone by 7:00 p.m. and that eight off-duty police officers would guard the entrance, but security footage showed that “not one of them was there after roughly 4:00 p.m.”
The owner purchased the eight-acre property in July 2007 for roughly $3.75 million—“the cost of the construction,” he said, adding that recent appraisals of the house have been “in the low eight figure range.”
On the bright side, he noted that Airbnb has been extremely accommodating and “labyrinthine in their approach to dealing with this situation.”
An Airbnb spokesperson confirmed that Barna has been removed from the house-sharing site. “We have zero tolerance for this kind of behavior and are working to support the host under our $1 million host guarantee.”