NY- A former press aide to Mayor Rudy Giuliani was found naked and strangled in a bed inside a cousin’s million-dollar Greenwich Village apartment, law enforcement sources said yesterday.
MartÃn Barreto – a respected public relations guru who lived a luxurious lifestyle with high-powered clients in New York and Miami – was discovered Monday lying near a condom wrapper and safe-sex aids, a law enforcement source said.
Police investigators believe Barreto, 48, a childhood friend of Bianca Jagger, was killed by someone he knew – possibly an enraged ex-lover or a man he met while cruising the Internet for gay sex, sources said.
“We’re all crushed because he couldn’t hurt a fly,” said Cristyne Nicholas, a former City Hall communications director. “He was just the sweetest, kindest, gentlest guy.”
A Giuliani spokeswoman said the former mayor offered “his heartfelt sympathy and prayers” to Barreto’s family.
Barreto’s distraught relatives, who have ties to former Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro, were stunned by his brutal death, describing him as a peaceful man with movie-star looks.
“It’s surreal,” his sister Carolina Meyer told the Daily News. “It’s a big loss.”
Detectives were investigating several theories and trying to find “an ex-boyfriend he had issues with,” a police source said. “It’s someone who tapped into his computer and had refused to understand that it was over.”
Late Friday, Barreto told a doorman he was expecting a visitor and asked the doorman to let the man upstairs, said neighbors, who suspected the man was a callboy.
Several of Barreto’s friends also said he had complained about being stalked by a former flame and obtained restraining orders several years ago against the man in New York and Miami. Barreto last spoke of the alleged stalker three years ago, his friends said.
“He was very afraid,” his friend Joseph Gelosi said. “MartÃn was very sure that he was very dangerous.”
Investigators seized a computer from the E. 10th St. apartment where Barreto was choked to death, and removed sheets in the hopes of finding DNA evidence. Cops said a condom appeared to be missing.
Cops found no sign that anything had been stolen or anyone had broken into the home.
“His larynx was crushed like an eggshell,” a source said, adding the killer likely wrapped his arm around Barreto’s neck, killing him with a wrestling hold.
A police source said friends last heard from Barreto about 3a.m. Sunday. His business partner Roxanna Brightwell said she grew alarmed when he failed to answer his cell phone.
After Barreto missed an important conference call Monday, Brightwell, who lives in Texas, asked a friend to check on him. That friend, along with the building superintendent and cops, found Barreto dead at 9:20 p.m.
“MartÃn is no longer with us,” the friend told Brightwell. Brightwell told The News, “I’m beside myself. He was so young, so vibrant.”
None of the roughly 20 security cameras at the building was working, sources said.
Though Barreto spent most of his time at his cousin’s home, he maintained another apartment on the upper West Side. It was at that home about five years ago that he lived with a TV producer.
“The relationship went sour and the man became violent,” Brightwell said. “This gentleman had hit him.”
Barreto then took out restraining orders. Police have not called the ex-lover a suspect in the slaying. It was also unclear if the producer was the same man allegedly stalking Barreto.