Maritime Hotel owners to pay 200G in permit scam

The owners of the celeb-friendly Maritime Hotel may cater to the rich and famous — but they ripped off taxpayers to cut costs while renovating the porthole-windowed building in Chelsea, the city Law Department announced Tuesday.

Hoteliers Sean MacPherson and Richard Born, their architect and others agreed to cough up $200,000 for shortchanging the Buildings Department for permits needed to convert the former headquarters of the National Maritime Union into a luxury getaway.

The scam came to light through a 2011 suit filed by an ex-conturned-whistleblower who alleged that the Maritime’s owners publicly boasted of spending $30 million on construction while telling the DOB it cost only $550,000. Higher construction costs require higher permit payments.

The defendants settled with the city after claiming they no longer had the records needed to amend their DOB filings. As part of the agreement, MacPherson, Born and architect Matt Markowitz also submitted the “true and accurate” cost of work on the Marlton Hotel in Greenwich Village, while Born and Markowitz did the same for the Pod 39 hotel in Murray Hill.

Whistleblower Jeffrey Groppi — a former federal informant who served a 30-month prison sentence in the mid-2000s for dealing narcotics — died before the case settled, so his $30,000 share of the settlement is going to his estate.

Groppi “suddenly passed away” in 2015 while “seeking much needed and affordable health care” in Spain, according to an online appeal by his widow that raised $800 to help pay for his cremation and bring his ashes to the US.

A lawyer for the defendants declined to comment.