Mayor Adams’ first deputy mayor Randy Mastro can continue representing Madison Square Garden in its case brought by NBA legend Charles Oakley, a judge ruled Monday.
The judge’s decision comes after Oakley tried to get the judge to disqualify the Adams administration official from defending the arena, arguing earlier this month Mastro’s continued representation of the Garden was in violation of the City Charter.
But in a Monday afternoon ruling siding with Mastro, Judge Richard Sullivan wrote that there’s typically a high bar for an attorney’s disqualification, and “Oakley plainly fails to meet that high standard of proof.”
Mastro, a controversial lawyer and former Giuliani deputy, was named Mayor Adams’ new top deputy last month. He’s chosen to stay working on the MSG case despite that new role.
His involvement in the case first raised conflict of interest concerns after the Daily News reported last month that he would keep representing the Madison Square Garden business empire while serving as first deputy mayor.
Sullivan wrote that Oakley’s lawyers showed no examples of a judge disqualifying a lawyer based on alleged violations of the City Charter. The attorneys didn’t provide a “factual basis” for their argument, either, Sullivan wrote.
The city’s Conflict of Interest Board has determined there is no conflict as long as Mastro recuses himself from city duties involving MSG, the judge 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.
City Hall, Mastro and Valdi Licul, Oakley’s attorney, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The long-running suit, filed in 2017, claims Oakley was unlawfully kicked out of Madison Square Garden after getting into a verbal altercation with James Dolan, the arena’s owner, at a Knicks game.
Ethics watchdogs and elected officials argued the arrangement was highly problematic, given that MSG holds extensive business interests before Adams administration, including issues related to tax breaks, which Mastro as first deputy mayor could exercise over.