Hundreds of texts and emails between top officials in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration and the city’s Rent Guidelines Board were released as part of a lawsuit alleging unlawful collusion between the independent body and City Hall.
The two sides communicated over 100 times, the messages show, but appear to lack an obvious clear smoking gun, and largely depict routine conversations on scheduling and exchanges of city-generated data, according to insiders and reports.
“The contacts between City Hall and the RGB were not only substantial, but also shocking, in that they show coordination and collaboration throughout the RGB’s process,” plaintiff attorney Randy Mastro claimed in a letter to the court.
His letter cites as evidence of “staggering” coordination the fact that City Hall officials and RGB members communicated “more than 100 times,” as well as the sharing of a “novel draft” of a presentation of cost of living, which he claimed “has never been used before.”
Many of the messages revolve around sharing such city-produced data with the RGB, though past board members have said that is routine under past mayoral administrations, according to reports.
Massimo D’Angelo, a real estate attorney who represents private landlords, said the documents show a pattern of “close, private coordination” between City Hall and the RGB, but some of the messages were “weaker than [Mastro’s] letter makes it sound.”
Only a “deeper dive may reveal the smoking gun,” D’Angelo said.
The city is already trying to ward off the second stage of discovery — a full forensic imaging of phones and computers — claiming they’ve already produced everything and the forensic scan would be invasive and unnecessary.
That scan could include any possible use of the private messaging app, Signal.
City Hall was already caught red handed using the encrypted app for group chats with a network of influencers who post positive coverage of the mayor.
No Signal messages have been produced so far, court records show. City Hall repeatedly refused to answer questions about the potential use of signal.
Manhattan Judge Brendan Lantry last week ordered the city to turn over the communications released Thursday between 13 City Hall officials, the mayor and the RGB — on the same day the new rent freeze for one and two-year leases went into effect.
The suit was originally filed this summer in Staten Island by landlords seeking to overturn the rent freeze on rent stabilized units approved by the RGB in a fulfillment of one of Mamdani’s major campaign promises. A judge later ruled that Mastro should have filed it in Manhattan courts.
