Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander criticized Manhattan’s U.S. attorney’s office Thursday after a federal judge found him not guilty of a violation during his one-day bench trial.
The city’s former fiscal watchdog slammed federal prosecutors for persisting in its case against him over a small federal violation he picked up after being arrested while protesting and demanding access to inspect immigrant detention conditions at 26 Federal Plaza last September.
“This U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Southern District [of New York], has a storied history of independence and seriousness about the rule of law that I believe is in jeopardy,” said Lander, who’s currently running for Congress in New York’s 10th district. “This was not an important prosecution.”
Lander’s comments came on June 11 outside Manhattan’s federal court moments after Federal Magistrate Judge Henry Ricardo acquitted him on charges of blocking elevators on 10th floor of the immigration court within 26 Federal Plaza, for which he was arrested on Sept. 18, 2025, purportedly while trying to inspect detainee conditions that, he said, made him “gravely concerned.”
The then-comptroller was arrested alongside 10 other elected officials that day, all of whom were demanding access to inspect the 10th floor of the building — something that had become a flashpoint for ICE enforcement in the second Trump regime. For nearly a year, masked agents at Federal Plaza have arrested people who attended their legally-mandated court hearings and detained hundreds of immigrants in notoriously inhumane conditions.
The group of elected officials were arrested about 25 minutes after they sat down near the elevators in the 10th-floor lobby, which Lander said he had done with no intention of obstructing their use, and only because he expected they’d be waiting a long time for the chance to access the detention center. The group had initially been told by officers that they “could stay as long as they like” as long as they didn’t bang on the center’s door, and, when they were being arrested, were never told there was a problem with them sitting in front of the elevators, all things Ricardo noted in his decision.
“There was no evidence presented at this trial that there was any actual obstruction of anyone,” Ricardo said, adding that he believed Lander’s testimony that he was not purposefully trying to block the elevator.
Wednesday’s roughly six-hour trial was an out-of-the-ordinary proceeding, both because it involved prosecutors from one of the highest-regarded U.S. attorneys’ offices litigating over elevator logistics, and because it’s incredibly rare for a violation like this to go to trial.
Federal prosecutors elected to barely cross-examine Lander, which the judge noted, saying part of the reason he was able to consider Lander’s trial testimony as credible is that it was not impeached, or directly challenged, by the assistant U.S. attorneys on the case.
Lander and his defense team have called the government’s continued prosecution of the case a way for the feds to “suppress a protest they weren’t liking.”
Lander stands with his defense attorneys outside Manhattan federal court.Isabella Gallo
All other arrested elected officials opted for a plea deal to have the charges against them dropped, but Lander chose to go to trial — calling it an attempt to force the courts and the public to bear witness to ICE’s actions.
The former comptroller faced criticism for his choice, with his Congressional opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, calling it a campaign ploy and others suggesting it was a waste of taxpayer money for the Southern District of New York to prosecute the case.
In response, Lander said on Thursday U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton could’ve chosen to drop the charges against him at any point and he wasn’t willing to take a plea deal over something he didn’t believe he was guilty of and that would have prevented him from protesting at 26 Federal Plaza for six months.
Additionally, Lander had said he’d been trying to use the case as a way to force ICE to turn over documents that would’ve shown what the agency was doing on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, like who they were detaining, what their justifications for doing so were, and how many people they were holding in what conditions through a legal process called discovery.
That didn’t work out, as federal prosecutors narrowed their case against Lander to simply whether or not he was obstructing the elevator – not whether or not he was obstructing government business – making those document requests out of legal bounds.
The Congressional candidate said the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office should focus its energy on holding the Trump administration accountable for the “federal crimes” he believed ICE was committing in federal buildings and courts across the city and country.
“They are not doing their job to hold the Trump administration and ICE accountable,” Lander said. “They need to stop worrying so much about the protesters on the outside and start worrying about the violations of law by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security inside.”
The former comptroller was in good spirits Thursday, smiling at the judge and kissing his wife in the courtroom after he was found not guilty. He walked out of the courthouse hand in hand with her with a Knicks hat on.
“I emerge today really grateful,” Lander said, who said he was further encouraged to continue pushing back against ICE.