Lawyer challenging New York rent freeze releases emails and text messages from Mamdani officials

A lawyer hoping to overturn a rent freeze for tenants in about a million stabilized apartments is asking a judge to order top city officials and Rent Guidelines Board members to appear for interviews after communications they submitted to the court failed to produce clear evidence they colluded in making the decision not to raise rents.

Attorney Randy Mastro, who served as deputy mayor under former Mayor Eric Adams, represents a group of landlords suing to block the rent freeze for new two-year leases, which took effect Thursday. Landlords accuse the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board of running a “sham” process intended to fulfill Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election promise to “freeze rents.” They asked a judge to block the freeze and require the board to vote again.

The mayor appoints members of the nine-person Rent Guidelines Board, but the committee is supposed to operate as an independent body that reviews landlord and tenant spending data and listens to public testimony before making its decision.

The rent freeze came into effect on Thursday October 1.

Manhattan Judge Brendan Lantry last week ordered 13 top city officials, including Mamdani, nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board and four board staff, to turn over email and text communications to Mastro and the landlords who filed the complaint.

Mastro submitted several email and text communications as exhibits in the case Thursday. They largely show officials in the mayor’s office coordinating with potential members about their board appointments and confirming board meeting times and agenda items.

In a text exchange, Mamdani greets a new board member, Brandon Mancilla. In another, Mamdani Tenant Protection Office Director Cea Weaver encouraged Mancilla to take a stand on the board in February.

“I say yes,” Mancilla replied to Weaver.

Other posts show City Hall staff members arranging times to present the council with a report on the “true cost of living” – something the council had not considered as part of its data reviews in previous years. Another shows a board member inviting the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice to make a presentation.

But in a letter to Judge Lantry, Mastro said the emails and text messages showed that “the contacts between City Hall and the RGB were not only substantial, but also shocking, in the sense that they demonstrated coordination and collaboration throughout the RGB process.” He asked the judge to compel the officials to be questioned as “central witnesses” involved in the text and email exchanges.

Mastro did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what he hoped to learn by removing those responsible for Mamdani.

Mamdani commented on the lawsuit in response to questions at an unrelated news conference Thursday, where he cited Gothamist reporting on Mastro’s own dealings with the Rent Guidelines Board when he was first deputy mayor last year.

Former board Chairman Doug Apple told Gothamist that Mastro spoke to him by phone and “advocated for a weak vote” as the board considered a one-year increase of up to 4.75 percent.

The council voted to increase rents by 3%.

“It was ironic to read an article in Gothamist that the man who is suing our administration on the grounds that we influenced the Independent Rent Guidelines Board is now accused of influencing the Rent Guidelines Board when it raised rents,” Mamdani said.

Mastro confirmed he had conversations with Apple, but said there was “a world of difference between letting the board chair know that the mayor disagreed with the board’s decision and orchestrating what he called “a sham process with a predetermined outcome to do exactly what the mayor dictated and promised during his campaign.”

Mamdani appointed six board members after taking office earlier this year. His pledge to “freeze rents” was a key pillar of his successful mayoral campaign in 2025, but he stopped publicly calling for the freeze after taking office in January.

The Rent Guidelines Board approved the first-ever two-year freeze on new leases at its annual meeting in June, sparking fury from landlords who said the board ignored data on rising landlord costs.

Mamdani also urged tenants who are unsure whether the rent freeze applies to them to call 311 and speak to the city’s tenant helpline. The freeze applies to all one-year and two-year leases for New Yorkers in rent-stabilized apartments.

“If you’re in a rent-stabilized apartment, whether you’re here or watching from home, any lease renewal starting today must remain at the same rent as last year,” he said during Thursday’s news conference.