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Knicks legend Charles Oakley wants First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro bounced from his legal spat over his infamous 2017 ejection from Madison Square Garden – claiming the lawyer’s bid to stay on the case is a “conflict of interest.”
The veteran litigator would be breaching Big Apple ethics rules by continuing to rep the arena, which receives lucrative city tax breaks, while serving as a top honcho in the mayor’s office, Oakley’s lawyer alleges.
“Courts have consistently doubted that any public servant – let alone a high-ranking official – can simultaneously serve the public while running a private law practice,” reads a letter filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.
Mastro has withdrawn in recent days from matters relevant to the city, like his work on New Jersey’s bid to kill New York’s congestion pricing plan, court records show.
But the attorney, who has represented the arena and its billionaire chairman James Dolan in various matters for two decades, is still helping his long-time clients defend Oakley’s suit.
Mastro has agreed to rep the Midtown arena for free, will appear in court in his personal capacity and not as a representative of the city, and has vowed to recuse himself from MSG-related matters while serving as first deputy mayor, a City Hall spokesperson said.
The city’s independent ethics board approved the unusual setup, according to the mayor’s office, after Mastro said that he has very little work left on the case – a claim that Oakley’s lawyer contests – and that he’d request further advice if that situation changed.
But Mastro has not been granted a “waiver” that city employees are required to obtain before moonlighting in private jobs, Oakley attorney Valdi Licul wrote to the court on Wednesday.
The mayor’s office maintains that the board found that, for now, no waiver was needed.
“New York City’s independent Conflicts of Interest Board evaluated the circumstances of First Deputy Mayor Mastro’s limited continued involvement in the Oakley litigation and advised he could stay on the case during this dispositive phase so long as he recuses himself from any issue involving his client during his city government tenure,” spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus told The Post.
“He has done that, so there is no conflict here to be waived,” Mamelak Altus added. “End of story.”
The mayor’s office said COIB’s input came in the form of a secret “advice letter” in which the anti-corruption panel approved Mastro’s continued work on the case.
City Hall officials did not provide a copy of the letter.
The letter says that Mastro’s work on the case would be limited to only a few hours repping his long-time clients at a pre-trial conference and reviewing drafts of briefs, Mamelak Atlus said.
Conflicts of Interest Board Executive Director Carolyn Miller declined to comment but referred a reporter to a section of the City Charter that she said barred the board from discussing advice given to city officials.
Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to tap Mastro, formerly first deputy mayor under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to the lofty post in his administration last month.
An earlier bid to appoint him as the city’s Corporation Counsel, or top lawyer, failed after City Counsel members blasted his work representing landlords, anti-congestion pricing groups and other parties during his decades-long legal career.
Oakley filed his lawsuit against MSG and Dolan in September 2017 over the ejection, claiming security “used excessive force in accomplishing the removal.”
The years-long feud between the men was revived in May, when New York Court of Appeals reinstated the twice-dismissed lawsuit. All claims against Dolan himself have been tossed from the case.
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