Randy Mastro goes to war against Mamdani amid the pied--terre tax rollout

Randy Mastro relishes a good legal fight — and Mayor Mamdani is providing plenty of opportunities to mix it up.Mastro, the veteran New York litigator who famously prosecuted the Teamsters for racketeering and helped clean up Mob corruption at the old Fulton Fish Market during the Giuliani years — now finds himself locking horns with Mamdani’s fledgling and competency-challenged administration.In addition to repping homeowners targeted 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 apartments.He’s representing an investigative reporter — pro bono — whose information requests into alleged antisemitism in City Hall have ­allegedly been stymied.“I’ve got five lawsuits and counting,” Mastro recently told me.“If [Mamdani] is still breaking the law there may be more.”The pied-à-terre tax — a levy on second homes worth more than $5 million and condos worth more than $1 million when the owner isn’t a so-called primary resident of NYC — is illegal, Mastro claims, because Mamdani put the onus on homeowners to immediately prove 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 sent threatening notices to homeowners who live in the city — something that is easily verifiable — City Hall has idiotically published 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 rent freeze, it’s bad on economic terms (it de-incentivizes both upkeep and creating new apartments) but it, too, is illegal.

Under the City Charter, the Big Apple’s constitution, an independent Rent Guidelines Board is supposed to decide such actions.Yes, the mayor gets to appoint the board’s members.But Mastro said Mamdani and his people literally rigged the system against landlords, gaming public he...