Barefoot Bum Given Boots by Cop Isn't Quite So Homeless

The apparently homeless New York man who made news around the world when a picture was taken of a NYPD cop giving him boots has his own apartment where a preacher friend pays his rent and also has more than thirty pairs of shoes.

Jeffrey Hillman, who has criminal activity listed in New York and Pennsylvania as far back as the early 1980s.was arrested in 1998 for public lewdness after allegedly masturbating in front of a crowd, busted in 2002 for harassment, menacing, criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest, busted again in 2003 for drugs, and busted once more in 2008 for possession of a controlled substance.

Now, he apparently just fakes being homeless. A NY Post reporter saw him begging on Sixth Avenue in Midtown, barefoot, wearing a sign that read “HOMELESS, and dragging a black garbage bag. When confronted and asked where were the boots that the NYPD officer gave him, Hillman replied, “I choose not to wear shoes … I have the shoes. People always ask me where are the shoes? I tell them they’re in the bag. I choose not to wear the shoes. Is that a crime? No! My feet haven’t fallen off yet.” He added that the boots were hidden because “they are worth a lot of money.”

When queried, Hillman continued,  “I got my own apartment. I cook for myself. I’m not robbing anybody. It’s Wall Street. It’s the people in these buildings.”