A 21-year-old socialist and unpaid former NYC Council intern who claimed she was axed after demanding she and her peers get paid $32 an hour with full health benefits — and plans to sue the Council — was born into wealth.
Mina Farahmand — who willingly interned for free last year to help get fellow silver-spoon socialist Zohran Mamdani elected mayor – is the daughter of a prominent surgeon and grew up in a palatial six-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom home on 30 acres in Colville, Wash.
Her father, Mehrdad Farahmand, is a general-surgery specialist at Providence, the largest health care provider in Washington State. Although his salary is not public, a current job posting for a general surgeon at Providence offers $457,269 to $555,423 in pay per year.
The elder Farahmand also owns a vacant five-and-a-half-acre lot about 10 miles away in nearby Kettle Falls, Wash., bringing his total property portfolio to nearly $1 million.
Mina Farahmand made national headlines last month after being fired from an unpaid post as a legislative intern for Councilman Harvey Epstein (D-Manhattan).
The recent New York University graduate and card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America claimed she was terminated as retaliation for spearheading a petition campaign demanding Council Speaker Julie Menin set up a fund to pay all Council interns “a living wage” of $32 hourly — nearly double NYC’s existing minimum wage of $17 an hour – plus health benefits.
Critics blasted the money move by the Gen Zer dripping with generational wealth.
“This is just another nepo-baby agitator who signed up for an unpaid internship, then demanded to be paid after the fact,” said former Councilman Robert Holden, a moderate Democrat, upon learning of Farahmand’s affluent upbringing.