the Rent Guidelines Board<\/a> is an independent, fact-finding body and is supposed to make this determination, and Mamdani stacked the board with his people,\u201d Mastro said. <\/p>\n\u201cThe public never had a true hearing of the costs faced by landlords, whether they can even afford the rent freeze or whether it\u2019s better just to keep these apartments \u00advacant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relishing the fight<\/p>\n
If you know Mastro \u2014 as I do, as a reporter covering the intersection of government and finance for the past three decades \u2014 you also know he relishes legal jujitsu and doesn\u2019t care whom he goes up against.<\/p>\n
His signature mane of combed-back brown hair and beard have gone silver\u00a0with age, but his temperament remains about where it was when he first chewed me out.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a former federal prosecutor and deputy mayor for Rudy Giuliani\u2019s transformational administration where he served as a policy enforcer. <\/p>\n
He returned to City Hall under Eric Adams, and since has resumed his role as one of the more feared private litigators around at the Dechert Law Firm.<\/p>\n
The 70-year-old registered Dem was working for Adams as\u00a0first\u00a0deputy mayor when Mamdani \u2014 a 34-year-old former assemblyman with a paper-thin r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that included a stint as a rapper \u2014 pulled his upset mayoral victory on a platform of far-left socialism and\u00a0radicalized grievances against Israel\u00a0that can easily be mistaken for anti\u00adsemitism.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharlie Gasparino has his finger on the pulse of where business, politics and finance meet\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up to receive On The Money by Charlie Gasparino in your inbox every Thursday.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Immediately, Mastro set the table for the confrontation now unfolding. <\/p>\n
He made headlines declaring he wouldn\u2019t \u201cwork for a socialist.\u201d <\/p>\n
Not that our Marxist mayor had any plans to use the services of someone who fits firmly in the middle of the ideological spectrum and is a huge supporter of the Jewish state.<\/p>\n
Still, a good case could be made that maybe Mamdani should have at least offered an olive branch given what happened next. <\/p>\n
Since Mamdani took office in January, Mastro has been the go-to-guy for people who believe they can fight City Hall.<\/p>\n
Or, as Mamdani recently quipped, \u201cThere are few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t expect him to go away without a fight. <\/p>\n
Mastro\u2019s prosecution of dirty dealings at the old Fulton Fish Market during the Giuliani years made him a target of the then-still potent La Cosa Nostra. <\/p>\n
He survived that, of course, and much more including his time with the hapless Adams administration.<\/p>\n
During his many decades in government and private practice, Mastro also has taken on government corruption and has represented top corporate clients and even former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the \u201cBridgegate\u201d scandal.<\/p>\n
One other\u00a0thing is certain if you follow Mastro\u2019s career: He wins more than he loses, including a recent case to prevent the building of subsidized housing in lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n
And now he\u2019s emerged as Mamdani\u2019s top private-sector antagonist.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, Randy isn\u2019t my cup of tea. He can be a real a\u2013hole,\u201d one former colleague told me. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut make no mistake, this guy is an excellent litigator and he doesn\u2019t care about people\u2019s feelings no matter how powerful they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former colleague added this warning to his current adversaries at City Hall: \u201cYour incompetence will be exposed going up against Randy Mastro.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Randy Mastro relishes a good legal fight \u2014 and Mayor Mamdani is providing plenty of opportunities to mix…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[148],"tags":[474,3503,565,1367,37573,553],"class_list":["post-198566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zohran-mamdani","tag-business","tag-city-hall","tag-eric-adams","tag-lawsuits","tag-pied-a-terre","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117142873122425618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}