Randy Mastro relishes a good authorized struggle — and Mayor Mamdani is offering loads of alternatives to combine it up.
Mastro, the veteran New York litigator who famously prosecuted the Teamsters for racketeering and helped clear up Mob corruption at the previous Fulton Fish Market during the Giuliani years — now finds himself locking horns with Mamdani’s fledgling and competency-challenged administration.
In addition to repping householders focused by Mamdani in his botched rollout of the pied-à-terre tax, Mastro has challenged the mayor’s plans to freeze the rents of stabilized flats.
He’s representing an investigative reporter — professional bono — whose data requests into alleged antisemitism in City Hall have allegedly been stymied.
“I’ve got five lawsuits and counting,” Mastro just lately informed me.
“If [Mamdani] is still breaking the law there may be more.”
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The pied-à-terre tax — a levy on second houses value more than $5 million and condos value more than $1 million when the proprietor isn’t a so-called major resident of NYC — is unlawful, Mastro claims, because Mamdani put the onus on householders to instantly show they didn’t owe the tax.
“That’s not how the tax system is supposed to work,” according to Mastro.
Not only has Mamdani erroneously despatched threatening notices to householders who dwell in the metropolis — something that is simply verifiable — City Hall has idiotically revealed their names.
“I even got one of those notices and I have been living here as a primary residence for years,” Mastro said with a chuckle.
As for the hire freeze, it’s unhealthy on financial phrases (it de-incentivizes both maintenance and creating new flats) but it, too, is unlawful.
Under the City Charter, the Big Apple’s structure, an unbiased Rent Guidelines Board is supposed to determine such actions.
Yes, the mayor gets to appoint the board’s members.
But Mastro said Mamdani and his folks actually rigged the system against landlords, gaming public hearings with out correct illustration of both sides of a sophisticated concern.
“It’s illegal because the Rent Guidelines Board is an independent, fact-finding body and is supposed to make this determination, and Mamdani stacked the board with his people,” Mastro said.
“The public never had a true hearing of the costs faced by landlords, whether they can even afford the rent freeze or whether it’s better just to keep these apartments vacant.”
Relishing the struggle
If you know Mastro — as I do, as a reporter protecting the intersection of authorities and finance for the previous three many years — you also know he relishes authorized jujitsu and doesn’t care whom he goes up against.
His signature mane of combed-back brown hair and beard have gone silver with age, but his temperament stays about where it was when he first chewed me out.
He’s a former federal prosecutor and deputy mayor for Rudy Giuliani’s transformational administration where he served as a coverage enforcer.
He returned to City Hall under Eric Adams, and since has resumed his position as one of the more feared non-public litigators around at the Dechert Law Firm.
The 70-year-old registered Dem was working for Adams as first deputy mayor when Mamdani — a 34-year-old former assemblyman with a paper-thin résumé that included a stint as a rapper — pulled his upset mayoral victory on a platform of far-left socialism and radicalized grievances against Israel that can simply be mistaken for antisemitism.
Immediately, Mastro set the desk for the confrontation now unfolding.
He made headlines declaring he wouldn’t “work for a socialist.”
Not that our Marxist mayor had any plans to use the providers of someone who suits firmly in the center of the ideological spectrum and is a big supporter of the Jewish state.
Still, a good case could be made that perhaps Mamdani should have at least provided an olive department given what occurred next.
Since Mamdani took workplace in January, Mastro has been the go-to-guy for folks who believe they can struggle City Hall.
Or, as Mamdani just lately quipped, “There are few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration.”
Don’t expect him to go away with out a struggle.
Mastro’s prosecution of soiled dealings at the previous Fulton Fish Market during the Giuliani years made him a goal of the then-still potent La Cosa Nostra.
He survived that, of course, and much more including his time with the hapless Adams administration.
During his many many years in authorities and non-public follow, Mastro also has taken on authorities corruption and has represented high company shoppers and even former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the “Bridgegate” scandal.
One other factor is certain if you comply with Mastro’s profession: He wins more than he loses, including a latest case to forestall the constructing of backed housing in decrease Manhattan.
And now he’s emerged as Mamdani’s high private-sector antagonist.
“Listen, Randy isn’t my cup of tea. He can be a real a–hole,” one former colleague informed me.
“But make no mistake, this guy is an excellent litigator and he doesn’t care about people’s feelings no matter how powerful they are.”
The former colleague added this warning to his present adversaries at City Hall: “Your incompetence will be exposed going up against Randy Mastro.”