In Los Angeles, many people fake it till they make it.
Squatters who took over a Beverly Hills mansion for five months seemed to take the saying literally.
Between October 2023 and February 2024, the group of squatters — led by aspiring actor Morgan Gargiulo — unlawfully occupied a vacant home in Beverly Hills, according to a Curbed investigation.
For months, Gargiulo successfully outsmarted police and neighbors, all while profiting from the Mediterranean-style villa at 1316 Beverly Grove Place without paying a single cent toward rent or a mortgage.
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The 5,875-square-foot mansion, which was built in 1999, has four bedrooms and four full bathrooms with a pool, a spa, and a cabana. Its interior is adorned with marble, stones, and tall pillars.
The squatters made money off of the home by hosting parties with entrance fees from $500 to $1,500, Curbed reported. Gargiulo and others also rented out rooms in the home on Booking.com, charging from $150 to $300 a night.
The home's listing agent, John A. Woodward IV, told Los Angeles magazine in January that he believed that the "very sophisticated criminal ring of squatters" was earning as much as $30,000 a month from the parties and rentals.
The squatters' infiltration of the mansion for that long should have been impossible. However, their misdeeds flourished due to a complex web of legal loopholes that obscured who really owned the home.
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The mansion, which has been on the market since July 2023, is located in the same neighborhood where basketball legend LeBron James recently purchased a home, and celebrities Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck own a $61 million compound, per Curbed.
After several run-ins with Woodward and police officers called to the property by suspicious neighbors, Gargiulo and his compatriots were evicted from the mansion in February 2024 — but not before wreaking havoc on the neighborhood.
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Business Insider reached out to Woodward but didn't hear back before publication.
Gargiulo almost got away with it
How Gargiulo got access to 1316 Beverly Grove Place remains a mystery, per Curbed's reporting.
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But shortly after he moved in, the parties started.
Curbed described how Gargiulo would enlist DJs, food catering services, and bartenders for the extravagant events. The downstairs living room was converted into a nightclub, complete with rave lights, Warhol-inspired decor, and a disco ball.
The parties rankled neighbors, who raised concerns in a group chat they called Neighborhood Watch, Curbed reported. Some group members thought the squatters were harboring mafia members, while others accused them of hosting orgies. On several occasions, Curbed added, they called the police.
Whenever Gargiulo was confronted by a neighbor or an officer, he'd present a fake lease to show he was a legal occupant. In one confrontation, Curbed said, he told officers that he had rented the home for $50,000 a year. Although they were skeptical, Gargiulo was not arrested.
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The mansion has a tangled web of ownership
Gargiulo's luck ran out in December 2023, when a judge returned ownership of the mansion to its previous owner, Adel Yamout, who was managing the home under an LLC called MDRCA Properties, according to Curbed.
The ownership history of the home is murky, but Yamout took possession of the home after several predecessors.
Curbed reported that the previous owners or occupants of the mansion include music executive Damon Dash, who sold the home in 2007; a former orthopedic surgeon, Munir Uwaydah, who was indicted in 2015 in one of the largest medical insurance fraud cases in California; and the cofounder of Death Row Records, Michael "Harry-O" Harris, who was pardoned in 2021 by former President Donald Trump for federal drug-trafficking charges.
According to Curbed, Yamout purchased the home in 2021 from Notre Dame Properties, which is allegedly "controlled" by Uwaydah.
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Yamout took legal action against the squatters, filing an unlawful detainer lawsuit to evict them, Curbed reported. Eventually, Gargiulo and the other squatters negotiated a deal with Yamout, agreeing to vacate the home within 30 days. No criminal charges were brought against them.
The mansion is listed in pre-foreclosure on Zillow for $3.9 million, and is set to be auctioned on April 15, according to WatchForeclosure.com. A representative from the auction site told Business Insider they were unsure about what the starting price for bids would be.
Gargiulo told Curbed that he has no regrets about living in the mansion or the headaches he brought the residents of Beverly Grove Place.
"I don't feel I have done anything bad," he told Curbed. "I actually feel I brought to Los Angeles some wonderful, wonderful moments of joy and music, and I've seen people very happy. I've seen people fall in love."
