NEW YORK — Prosecutors charged New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ closest confidant in a conspiracy, bribery and money laundering case Thursday.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg released an indictment alleging Ingrid Lewis-Martin — Adams’ long-serving, formidable chief adviser who abruptly resigned on Sunday — gave special treatment to a pair of real estate developers when their construction projects ran into bureaucratic hurdles. In exchange for her help, the duo provided Lewis-Martin and her son with more than $100,000 in checks and cash, which Lewis-Martin’s son used to buy a Porsche, the complaint and a statement of facts allege.
The developers also allegedly provided Lewis-Martin’s son help with setting up a Chick-fil-A franchise. And she anticipated assistance from one of the builders for her son’s fashion business.
Lewis-Martin’s son, Glenn Martin II, and the two developers were also charged. All four pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Thursday.
Bragg said that in exchange for the cash, Lewis-Martin engaged in bribery, money laundering and conspiracy through her role as the mayor’s $287,663-a-year chief adviser.
“We will continue to root out corruption; New Yorkers deserve no less,” Bragg said.
The case is the latest to hollow out the Democratic mayor’s inner circle, six months before he’s to appear on the ballot for reelection. Five other top aides to the mayor have quit or been forced out since September, prompted by investigators raiding their homes and seizing their electronic devices in ongoing corruption probes. The scope of alleged corruption around the mayor remains one of the enduring narratives of his first term.
On Thursday morning, Lewis-Martin and her son — a DJ who goes by the name Suave Luciano — surrendered to the DA’s office in a case centered around the city’s Department of Buildings.
After their arraignment, Lewis-Martin’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, spoke to reporters and referred to the case, without evidence, as a politically motivated witch hunt.
“We’re very confident that New Yorkers, using their common sense in this courthouse, will understand the ridiculousness of these charges,” he said.
The wrongdoing alleged in the indictment began just weeks after Adams came into City Hall in 2022.
On Jan. 22 of that year, Lewis-Martin and her son met with the two developers: Raizada Vaid, who goes by the alias Pinky, and Mayank Dwivedi. That confab kicked off a number of meetings and communications among the four through the ensuing years.
In May 2022, for instance, Lewis-Martin’s son asked his mother to intervene in a visa issue for one of the developer’s family members — an issue she brought up with the office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
In November, the real estate duo began running into problems with a Manhattan property.
“Ingrid Madam is needed,” Dwivedi allegedly texted Vaid at the time.
Two weeks later, the developers asked Lewis-Martin to intervene in a separate Manhattan project, the complaint alleges, and she subsequently contacted the interim Buildings Department commissioner to try to expedite that permit — one of multiple instances she contacted the official on behalf of Dwivedi and Vaid, sometimes securing immediate results.
“Without regard to safety considerations and with complete disregard for DOB’s expertise, Lewis-Martin acted as an on-call consultant for Vaid and Dwivedi to resolve whatever issues they had with DOB on their construction projects,” Bragg wrote in the statement of facts.
On Dec. 8, Lewis-Martin asked the real estate honchos to communicate with her using Signal, an encrypted messaging app — something she would remind them of when they made requests of her. That same day, she had a message for her son.
“Pinky has you completely covered. You[r] fashion line is 100 percent,” she allegedly wrote. “Call him later.”
Over the course of two days in August of the following year, Vaid and Dwivedi wrote two cashiers checks totalling $100,000 that were deposited by Lewis-Martin’s son into a bank account he shared with his mother.
After several other interactions between Lewis-Martin’s son and the developers, the political scion asked Vaid in a telephone conversation for help starting a Chick-fil-A franchise, an enterprise that Glenn Martin allegedly worried would be held up because of questions about his past business history.
“I need your help on Chick-fil-A… You want me to start the process with the paperwork?” he asked. “Or you have a team to do that?”
Vaid said that they could “make it happen.”
Over the course of the next several weeks, Lewis-Martin’s son and the developers — along with an unnamed real estate agent — began scouting out locations for the chicken purveyor.
At one point, Lewis-Martin spoke with the unnamed third-party, who had expressed interest in finding a location for the Chick-fil-A outpost.
“I’m not playing. Your sister has to be rich! I’m gonna retire,” Lewis-Martin allegedly said.
Aidala told reporters outside the Manhattan courthouse that Lewis-Martin was simply doing her job when she reached out to the Buildings commissioner — and was in fact carrying out a mandate of the mayor.
“Eric Adams ran on the promise: I’m going to help businesses go up. I am not going to help bring businesses down,” he said. “And what she was doing here was just moving things along.”
Her son and the two developers were friends, Aidala said, and the $100,000 payment was part of a legitimate business transaction.
“Does that sound like a New York City bribery scheme, or does it sound like a bunch of people who know each other?” he asked. “Her son is friends with these guys. These guys need some help figuring out how to get something done in … the thick red tape city of New York.”
Bragg hit all four defendants with a conspiracy charge, while Lewis-Martin and her son were additionally charged with receiving a bribe and money laundering. The developers were charged with bribery in addition to the conspiracy count.
The DA announced the charges Thursday alongside the city’s Department of Investigation.
“When City officials monetize their office for personal gain, they undermine fundamental principles of integrity in government, diminish trust in public officials, and unfairly tarnish the reputations of the countless City employees who use their office solely to serve the public good,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said in a statement.
Thursday’s indictment was not Lewis-Martin’s first run-in with Bragg.
In late September, officials from the DA’s office stopped her at John F. Kennedy Airport and took her phones upon her return from an international vacation with other city aides and a lobbyist. Bragg’s office simultaneously searched her Brooklyn home. Manhattan federal prosecutors were also waiting for Lewis-Martin to land and served her with a grand jury subpoena at the airport.
A day earlier, federal prosecutors had indicted Adams in a separate alleged corruption scheme, which he pleaded not guilty to.
Shortly after her encounter with law enforcement officers, Lewis-Martin appeared to admit to some level of impropriety on her lawyer’s radio show.
“We are imperfect, but we’re not thieves,” Lewis-Martin said. “And I do believe that in the end, that the New York City public will see that we have not done anything illegal to the magnitude or scale that requires the federal government and the DA office to investigate us.”
In a separate press conference this week, Lewis-Martin denied wrongdoing.
“I’m here falsely accused of — something. I don’t know exactly what it is. But I know that I was told that it’s something that’s illegal. And I have never done anything illegal in my capacity in government,” Lewis-Martin said.
Adams, speaking Monday about Lewis-Martin’s abrupt resignation, gave insight into the depth of their bond.
“Whenever I walked on stage to do a State of the City, go to a debate, no matter what I did, she would walk in the room, ask everyone to leave, and she would grab my hands and she would pray for me to give me the strength and courage to move forward as I try to communicate with New Yorkers,” the mayor said during a press briefing. “This morning I did it for her. I lifted her up in prayer.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Buildings Department said officials dispatched inspectors to two of the properties mentioned in the indictment, and that an audit of construction applications for the developments is forthcoming.
City Hall referred POLITICO to Bragg’s comments that the mayor is not implicated, and referred questions about Ingrid to her attorney.
Indeed, while the mayor isn’t accused in the indictment against Lewis-Martin, he is facing bribery charges of his own in a federal court case involving the Turkish government.
“I don’t know if they’re trying to get to Eric Adams,” Aidala said. “Ingrid Lewis-Martin has nothing bad to say about Eric Adams. So if they think this is a way to get to him, they are absolutely wrong.”
Aidala said if investigators were listening to his client’s phone calls — and telephone conversations were indeed cited in the indictment — they would find nothing amiss.
“I hope they’ve been listening to Ingrid’s phone for the last 30 years,” Aidala said. “You know what they’re going to find out? She loves karaoke with all of her friends. She loves international travel with all of her friends. She is loyal to her family, friends and to Eric Adams.”
