MEL: assign a unique multiplier

Let's say I have a few hundred layers and I want to animate the first and have all the rest follow at regular intervals.

In After Effects I could write an expression that told each layer to find the position of the lead layer at "time-(offset*index)", where "offset" is a variable and index is the index number of that layer (so layer 2 would multiply the offest by 2, layer 3 by 3, etc.). It's a convention I use all the time in AE for expressions.

Is there any equivelant in Maya expressions where I can assign a number of layers a unique multiplier at increases with each layer?

Hope that's clear.