{"id":605,"date":"2026-08-17T19:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T19:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=605"},"modified":"2026-08-17T19:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T19:17:12","slug":"randy-mastro-cant-stop-suing-zohran-mamdanis-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=605","title":{"rendered":"Randy Mastro can\u2019t stop suing Zohran Mamdani\u2019s City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In the eight months that former New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been out of office, he has traveled the world, gained Albanian citizenship and advocated for data centers in the dreaded Midwest. Though his split with City Hall was as acrimonious as it gets, Adams has kept a healthy distance from his old place of work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Opinion: Let\u2019s treat our museums and libraries like soccer fields<\/a><\/p>\n

One of his top allies is having a harder time making a clean break.<\/p>\n

Randy Mastro, the spirited 69-year-old attorney who served as Adams\u2019 first deputy mayor in his final year in office, has become the de facto general in a multi-front war against the new City Hall, using the courts and a blitz of lawsuits to take on democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n

Mastro, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, has represented clients in five new lawsuits against the city this year. In doing so, he\u2019s cast a wide net. While each lawsuit has sought to foil Mamdani\u2019s plans, targets vary from halting the relocation of a homeless shelter, fighting for the city to adopt an open primary election system, trying to undo the Rent Guideline Board\u2019s rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments and backing a Forbes journalist pro bono who sued the city for allegedly not sharing records about the overturning of executive orders tied to antisemitism and Israel. The bumpy rollout of the city\u2019s pied-\u00e0-terre tax on luxury second homes is the latest issue to draw a legal challenge from Mastro.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mastro, for his part, insists that none of this is personal. Rather, it\u2019s about \u201cthe rule of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho better than a former deputy mayor who litigates to know when local government screws up,\u201d Mastro quipped in an interview with City & State, noting he\u2019s sued multiple administrations. \u201cI\u2019m non-denominational. I\u2019m not a politician. I\u2019m just a lawyer who believes in the rule of law and holding the government accountable when it breaks it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there seems to be a particular fervor to Mastro\u2019s various battles against the Mamdani administration. A forceful presence in the waning days of the Adams administration, Mastro was critical of Mamdani from the start. When he submitted his resignation last December, Mastro stated \u2013\u00a0unnecessarily, of course \u2013\u00a0that he\u2019d never \u201cwork for a socialist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen somebody tells you who they are, believe them,\u201d Mastro said of Mamdani. \u201cWhile I think many New Yorkers are shocked, they shouldn\u2019t be because he\u2019s doing exactly what he said he would do \u2013 and in the process his administration has been breaking the law.\u201d City Hall has vigorously defended those lawsuits, and has logged some successes. A state judge ruled last month that Mamdani acted lawfully in disbanding Adams\u2019 zombie Charter Revision Commission, for example.<\/p>\n

But clearly, Mastro has gotten under the mayor\u2019s skin \u2013 at least in wake of his latest legal challenge against the controversial pied-\u00e0-terre tax. Speaking to reporters last week after a Staten Island judge issued a temporary restraining order pausing the city\u2019s rollout, Mamdani called Mastro out directly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Editor\u2019s note: City & State\u2019s new, revamped city team<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration,\u201d he joked, before adding that he was confident in the legality of the city\u2019s action. Indeed, the pause was only a short-lived victory for Mastro. A state appeals court judge reversed the move last week, ruling that the city can move forward with implementation for now \u2013 at least until a court hearing set for the end of August.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mastro appeared to remain on the mayor\u2019s mind as the week went on. After word broke that the city would drop its plans to tear up Elizabeth Street Garden and replace it with affordable housing \u2013 something Mamdani had promised to find a way to do in the first year of his tenure \u2013 the mayor laid the blame squarely on Mastro. Last fall, shortly after Mamdani won the mayoral election, Mastro had the garden designated as \u201cparkland,\u201d thus making it much harder for the future administration to build there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mastro has been a constant thorn in Mamdani\u2019s side \u2013\u00a0certainly more than any other person from the Adams administration. Beyond issuing some criticism on social media or in the odd cable news interview, Adams himself has been preoccupied with other matters. While Mastro said he\u2019s been in touch with the former mayor, he declined to go into details about the extent of their communication.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mastro said he doesn\u2019t blame anyone from the prior administration for staying out of things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t for everyone. It\u2019s hard to fight City Hall. It takes a lot of guts,\u201d Mastro said. \u201cThese clients, I give them so much credit, because they are standing up to City Hall and that\u2019s not an easy thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mastro will be back in court later this week, on August 21 for the rent freeze case and August 31 for the pied-\u00e0-terre lawsuit. He\u2019s looking forward to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no, it energizes me,\u201d Mastro said when asked whether he expects to be exhausted juggling his various lawsuits. \u201cI\u2019m young at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The 2026 Trailblazers in Real Estate<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former first deputy mayor is carrying the torch of the Adams administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,20,45],"tags":[119,21,46],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eric-adams","category-new-york-city","category-zohran-mamdani","tag-eric-adams","tag-new-york-city","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"yoast_head":"\nRandy Mastro can\u2019t stop suing Zohran Mamdani\u2019s City Hall - Business Relocation Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=605\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Randy Mastro can\u2019t stop suing Zohran Mamdani\u2019s City Hall - 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