【Epoch Times, October 20, 2026】 A man from Queens had filed a lawsuit against the New York City government in 2020, claiming that he had been tripped by an uneven iron plate on a sidewalk in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood, resulting in severe injuries to his hand, shoulder, and lower lip, and seeking a compensation of up to $1 million. However, after city lawyers reviewed medical records, they were surprised to discover the truth – the man’s actual injury stemmed from being struck with a lead pipe during a Thanksgiving brawl.
According to the New York Post, this fraud case is just one of the 15 suspicious lawsuits brought by the prominent Manhattan Downtown personal injury law firm, Asher & Associates, over the past decade.
Earlier this month, the New York City Law Department officially filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Federal Court. The city invoked the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), commonly used to combat mafia and organized crime, accusing Asher & Associates of systematically orchestrating staged falls, fabricated injuries, and attempting to defraud taxpayers of substantial funds. This marks the city’s first deployment of the federal RICO Act to combat false personal injury lawsuits.
According to the complaint filed by the city government in federal court, the 15 lawsuits all claimed compensation on grounds of public facility defects such as “sidewalk damage” and “road potholes”. However, hospital medical records revealed a starkly different reality: the true causes of the plaintiffs’ injuries included being “punched in the chin”, “assaulted with a lead pipe”, “colliding with an open car door”, and even “injured in a hit-and-run accident with the fleeing vehicle”.
The complaint alleges that Asher & Associates even employed runners to visit emergency rooms and seek out injured individuals who couldn’t obtain compensation. As these victims “walked from the emergency room to the courtroom”, the law firm magically transformed their injuries – various interpersonal conflicts or accidents – into cases supposedly caused by “damaged, tilted, or uneven roads under city jurisdiction”.
Steven Banks, the Commissioner of the New York City Law Department, solemnly stated in a release, “The existence of personal injury laws is to protect genuine victims, not to line the pockets of those attempting to swindle substantial sums from the city’s taxpayers.”
In New York City, personal injury lawsuits have long become a thriving industry. Many law firms attract business by inundating highways billboards and subway carriages with advertisements, often mockingly referred to as “chasing ambulances”.
Data from the New York City Comptroller’s Office shows that in the previous fiscal year, expenditures on litigation settlements and judgments exceeded $2 billion, rising to nearly $1.9 billion the year before. Officials emphasize that cracking down on fraudulent claims will save the city and taxpayers billions in expenses.
Facing the weighty allegations from the city government, Matthew Laroche, the defense lawyer for Asher & Associates, released a statement vehemently denying the city’s charges as “baseless”.
“For over 40 years, Asher & Associates has achieved great success in advocating for injured New Yorkers,” Laroche stated. “The city’s attempt to misconstrue ordinary civil disputes as mafia crimes grossly distorts the facts, evidently aiming to create a chilling effect on advocacy lawyers.”
Nevertheless, the legal community and advocacy groups are closely monitoring the development of this case. Tom Stebbins, the head of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of NY, referred to it as a “landmark case exposing the long-standing fraudulence in the court system”.
Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University and former federal prosecutor, noted that the framework of the RICO Act is indeed well-suited to investigate such long-standing, systematic patterns of misconduct. “As long as the factual evidence is substantial, the city’s litigation strategy is entirely defensible.”