Mamdani Staff to Turn Over Phones for Rent Freeze Suit
The search is on for evidence that the decision-making process that led to New York’s rent freeze was fixed.
Twenty-six people from City Hall and New York’s Rent Guidelines Board will be asked to turn over their personal and work cell phones and email accounts for search, as part of a lawsuit challenging the rent freeze.
The full search could take weeks, pushing the case past Oct. 1, when a rent freeze takes effect. Landlords won’t get to increase rents while the case is being worked out, Judge Brendan Lantry said at a hearing Thursday.
“I’m not going to operate with a shotgun to my head,” he said. “Perhaps there will be a decision before Oct. 1. There may not be a decision before Oct. 1.”
Lawyers for a group of rent-stabilized landlords had asked Lantry to extend last year’s allowable rent increase of 3 percent while the case is being argued, but he said he didn’t have that authority.
Any communications between City Hall and the Rent Guidelines Board will be collected and turned over to the judge and the attorneys representing landlords, offering a potential glimpse into the board’s decision-making process.
The city has until Tuesday to come up with screenshots of any communications from email, text messages and messaging platforms like Signal and then 30 days to collect and process metadata and other information.
Although attorneys for landlords challenging the freeze wanted documents produced sooner, lawyers for the city said it couldn’t be done. The collection process involves a vendor taking a cell phone for up to 8 hours, then processing its data into something readable.
“The people on this list are running New York City. Giving up their phone for four to eight hours … is not an insignificant thing,” Steven Banks, who leads the city’s law office, said at the hearing.
The city said that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s emails had already been searched for communications with the RGB staff and members, but that no documents had been found.
The relevant staff at the mayor’s office, as identified in court filings, are:
- Mayor Zohran Mamdani
- Dean Fuleihan, first deputy mayor
- Julie Su, deputy mayor for economic justice
- Leila Bozorg, deputy mayor for housing and planning
- Genevieve Michel, chief of staff to Bozorg
- Elle Bisgaard-Church, Mayor Mamdani’s chief of staff
- Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants
- Tascha Van Auken, director of the Office of Mass Engagement
- Afua Atta-Mensah, NYC Chief Equity Officer and Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice
- Arvind Sindhwani, Bozorg’s deputy chief of staff and the designated point of contact for the RGB
- Shehab Chowdhury, senior advisor at MOERJ
- Dabash Negash, deputy commissioner of MOERJ
- Sherif Soliman, director of the Office of Management and Budget
Additionally the nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board and its four staff members will need to turn over devices.
What we’re thinking about: I’m thinking about what we may find in these communications. I highly doubt a smoking gun here. Have thoughts? Send them to lilah.burke@therealdeal.com.
A thing we learned: Salaries for attorneys in the city’s law department start at $87,737 and go up to $180,791, according to a city website.
Elsewhere…
— City Council Members Chi Ossé, Alexa Avilés, Jennifer Gutiérrez and Emily Gallagher, along with Democratic nominees for Congress including Darializa Avila Chevalier, were arrested in Manhattan Thursday for blocking the street in protest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations and U.S. support for Israel, City & State reported. The protest was organized by the group Jewish Voice for Peace.
— The city will provide 70,000 free tickets to the Metropolitan Opera for New Yorkers who have never attended, according to a press release from the Mayor’s Office.
— The group Co-ops and Condos United has been lobbying against Local Law 97, which requires large buildings to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. But the group “has deeper ties to the real estate industry than its grassroots branding suggests,” reports New York Focus. Before a rebranding, the group received all its funding from a lobbying group run by the Real Estate Board of New York. Geoffrey Mazel, a leader at CCU, said he is independent. “I don’t give a shit what REBNY says about anything,” he told the publication.
Closing time
Residential: The most expensive residential sale recorded Thursday was $8.1 million for a 2,671-square-foot, sponsor-sale condominium at 255 East 77th Street on the Upper East Side. Alexa Lambert, Alison Black and Shelton Smith with Compass had the listing.
Commercial: The most expensive commercial transaction was $11.75 million for a 72-unit apartment building at 10 Park Terrace East in Inwood.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market is $17.5 million for a 3,836-square-foot condominium at The Flatiron Building, 175 Fifth Avenue. Corcoran has the listing.
— Matthew Elo
