By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-10-06 23:41:46 | Updated at 2026-10-07 03:07:28
3 hours ago
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Slip and fraud!
A personal injury firm has spent years filing phony lawsuits and scamming millions off New York City taxpayers in a bogus slip-and-fall cash grab, according to a shocking new lawsuit filed by the city.
Asher & Associates wholly invented lawsuits to bilk city coffers — including 15 examples where the firm argued the city was liable for $41 million due to sidewalk and roadway trips, court papers said.
While the injuries may have been real, they weren’t as advertised. One person claimed they tripped over a sidewalk metal plate, but they were actually beaten with a lead pipe, according to obtained medical records that were included in the federal lawsuit.
The Big Apple has sued law firm Asher & Associates, accusing it of a bogus slip-and-fall scheme involving 15 fraudulent cases seeking $41 million. Roberta Asher / FacebookThe firm scored “millions of dollars” in payouts through settlements and judgments over at least a 10-year period, court papers said. And more than 875 cases are currently pending against the city, Con Ed and various other companies involved in road work across the Big Apple.
“Personal injury laws exist to protect actual victims of trauma, not to line the pockets of people looking to make a quick buck off City taxpayers,” said New York City Corporation Counsel Steven Banks.
“This firm undermined our civil justice system by operating an illegal scheme to defraud taxpayers and fabricating personal injury claims against the City and others.”
Reps from Asher & Associates did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The lawsuit includes over a dozen cases that the city says are “fraudulent,” where medical records directly contradict what attorneys claimed in court.
“In moving from emergency room to courtroom the Asher Defendants’ clients’ narratives undergo a remarkable metamorphosis,” the filing reads, where a “punch in the jaw … an opened car door, or an encounter with a hit and run driver is transformed into that ‘defective, cracked, misleveled, broken … or uneven’ roadway owned or controlled by the City.”
The law firm secured “millions” in payouts over a 10-year period in this alleged slip-and-fall scheme. Ryan Asher / LinkedInIn a 2019 case, Asher claimed in sworn statements that their client’s hand injury was because he tripped over a “misleveled” metal plate on a Brooklyn sidewalk.
But the emergency room intake told a different story: The client was in “a fight on Thanksgiving Day and was hit with a pipe across his hand,” according to records the city obtained from Kings County Medical Center.
Other medical records show that while doctors were told the injuries were from motorcycle accidents, car crashes and bike spills, Asher & Associates told the court the city was to blame.
All 15 of the cases filed notices of claim against the city seeking $3 million each.
“We’re thrilled to have Mayor Mamdani’s Law Department in the trenches, tackling the legal system abuse that drives up costs throughout the economy, and makes New York less affordable for all,” said Tom Stebbins, executive director at the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York.
In 2024, the city paid out over $1 billion in personal injury and property tort claims, according to the comptroller’s office.
“New York City pays out more in lawsuits than the next largest U.S. cities combined,” Stebbins added. “The lawyers get richer while the rest of us pay more for everything.”
