City Comptroller Brad Lander pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of blocking ICE operations in an elevator bank at 26 Federal Plaza in a grandstanding play against the Trump administration.

Lander was hit with the charge — a class C federal misdemeanor — on September 18th, 2025, at the federal building on the 10th floor, where the immigration court is held.

“I pleaded not guilty to the charge, because the crime was not us sitting on the floor of the 10th floor elevator lobby. The crime is what ICE agents are doing on the other side of the 10th floor,” Lander railed to reporters outside of New York’s Southern District federal court immediately following his arraignment.

The government opted to drop the possibility of Imprisonment against the lame-duck comptroller. William Farrington

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