Man Arrested After White Powder Scare At Midtown Hotel, Police Say

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A man is in custody after a mysterious white powder sickened a housekeeper inside a high-end Midtown hotel on Tuesday, police said.

After the female employee cleaned an 11th-floor room inside the Park Hyatt hotel on West 57th Street around 1 p.m. Tuesday, he began to feel nauseous and dizzy and was taken to a hospital, police officials said.

She explained that she had cleaned a "white powdery substance" from the room, NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy told reporters Tuesday evening.

By Wednesday, police had arrested a suspect: 55-year-old John Taddei of Queens, who was charged with theft of services and criminal trespass, police said.

McCarthy said Tuesday that the then-unidentified suspect had been seen walking into the hotel room around 8 a.m. Tuesday, after a family who had recently checked out of the room apparently dropped one of their door keys. The suspect was seen on camera leaving the room around 10:30 a.m.

He has at least 16 prior arrests for low-level crimes, according to McCarthy.

The scare prompted police to evacuate guests from the entire floor, and an initial test by the FDNY revealed a "possible trace" of an explosive substance, McCarthy said. Subsequent tests by police came back negative, suggesting the first result was a false positive — though the powder itself had been wiped away and was no longer visible, police said.

McCarthy emphasized that there was "no credible threat against the city," adding that the hotel had been evacuated out of an abundance of caution.