The state ethics watchdog agency received a complaint urging a probe into how Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani obtained his $2,300 rent-stabilized apartment.
The state ethics watchdog agency has received a complaint urging a probe into how Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani obtained his rent-stabilized apartment and whether he complied with gift rules for elected officials.
“Questions have been raised in public discussion about the timeline of his tenancy in relation to when New York State ethics rules apply to elected officials,” Jason Soren, an economist with the free-market American Institute for Economic Research, said in an August 12 letter to the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government.
Mamdani has said he was a tenant in his $2,300, one-bedroom pad in Astoria, Queens, before he was elected to the state Assembly in 2020, and didn’t know it was rent-stabilized at the time.
But Soren said he was skeptical that Mamdani — the Democratic socialist front-runner to win the mayoralty — was not versed in the state’s rent regulation laws, considering he once worked as a foreclosure prevention specialist helping tenants fight off evictions.
“Mr.
