Mayor Adams’ first deputy mayor Randy Mastro can proceed representing Madison Sq. Backyard in opposition to a lawsuit introduced by NBA legend Charles Oakley, a decide dominated Monday.
The decide’s choice comes after Oakley tried to get the decide to disqualify the Adams administration official from defending the world, arguing earlier this month Mastro’s continued illustration of the Backyard was in violation of the Metropolis Constitution.
However in a Monday afternoon ruling siding with Mastro, Choose Richard Sullivan wrote that there’s usually a excessive bar for an lawyer’s disqualification, and “Oakley plainly fails to meet that high standard of proof.”
FILE – Former New York Knicks participant Charles Oakley exchanges phrases with a safety guard in the course of the first half of an NBA basketball recreation between the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Clippers, in New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard, Feb. 8, 2017. (AP Photograph/Frank Franklin II, File)
Mastro, a controversial lawyer and former Giuliani deputy, was named Mayor Adams’ new high deputy final month. He’s chosen to remain engaged on the MSG case regardless of that new position.
Sullivan wrote that Oakley’s legal professionals confirmed no examples of a decide disqualifying a lawyer primarily based on alleged violations of the Metropolis Constitution. The attorneys didn’t present a “factual basis” for his or her argument, both, Sullivan wrote.
Charles Oakley attends Michael Rubin’s Fanatics Tremendous Bowl social gathering on the Marquee Nightclub at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on February 10, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photograph by Ethan Miller/Getty Photographs)
The town’s Battle of Curiosity Board has decided there isn’t any battle so long as Mastro recuses himself from metropolis duties involving MSG, the decide wrote.
“Oakley has not established that Mastro’s continued representation of MSG while serving as First Deputy Mayor poses any risk of ‘taint[ing] the underlying trial here,’” Sullivan wrote.
Metropolis Corridor, Mastro and Valdi Licul, Oakley’s lawyer, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Govt chairman and Madison Sq. Backyard CEO James Dolan watches in the course of the first half of an NBA basketball recreation between the New York Knicks and the Sacramento Kings in New York, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019. (AP Photograph/Kathy Willens)
The long-running go well with, filed in 2017, claims Oakley was unlawfully kicked out of Madison Sq. Backyard after making verbal jabs at James Dolan, the world’s proprietor, at a Knicks recreation.
Ethics watchdogs and elected officers argued the association of Mastro representing MSG whereas first deputy was extremely problematic, provided that MSG holds in depth enterprise pursuits earlier than Adams’ administration. These pursuits embody points associated to tax breaks, which Mastro as first deputy mayor may train affect over.
Initially Printed: April 14, 2025 at 5:44 PM EDT
