Mayor Eric Adams’ closest longtime advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, sold off her influence to a wide variety of interests, taking free catering, cash, home renovations and other gifts in exchange for her help eliminating bureaucratic hurdles for developers and steering lucrative contracts to select vendors, prosecutors charged Thursday.
The breadth of her alleged perfidy was breathtaking: funneling contracts for migrant shelter sites to favored developers, fast-tracking development projects and a permit for one developer’s karaoke bar, altering a street design that was to have included protected bike lanes.
In return, she received cash, home renovations and thousands of dollars of free catering for events she held at Gracie Mansion. Her son, Glenn Martin II, allegedly received $50,000 in cash diverted from a city contract, according to the charges unsealed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Four separate indictments leveled conspiracy, bribery and other charges against six defendants: Lewis-Martin and her son; Jesse Hamilton, another close associate of Adams whom the mayor put in charge of city leases; businessman Tian Ji Li and developer Yechiel Landau; and Gina and Anthony Argento, co-owners of Broadway Stages, a film and TV production company that got Lewis-Martin to intervene to cancel street-safety alterations on McGuinness Boulevard they opposed.
All six surrendered to 100 Centre Street courthouse early Thursday and were led into court handcuffed. All pleaded not guilty before Judge Daniel Conviser and were released without bail.
The new indictment is the second for Lewis-Martin and her son, both of whom Bragg charged last December in a separate case in which they are alleged to have pressured city bureaucrats to do favors for two developers trying to get their real estate projects approved.
Lewis-Martin’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, disparaged the seriousness of the new charges, calling them “the lowest level of felony in our justice system.”
“Her only so-called ‘offense’ was fulfilling her duty — helping fellow citizens navigate the City’s outdated and often overwhelming bureaucracy. At no point did she receive a single dollar or any personal benefit for her assistance,” he asserted. “Yet, the District Attorney seeks to portray a dedicated and honest public servant as a criminal. This is not justice — it is a distortion of the truth and a troubling example of politically motivated ‘lawfare’.”
Lewis-Martin, garbed in a gold pantsuit, left court without speaking to reporters.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokesperson for Adams, said in a statement: “Mayor Adams was not involved in this matter and has not been accused of or implicated in any wrongdoing. He remains focused on what has always been his priority — serving the 8.5 million New Yorkers who call this city home and making their city safer and more affordable every single day. Ingrid Lewis-Martin no longer works for this administration.”
Hamilton darted away from reporters after the court hearing, slipping out a back door of Manhattan Supreme Court and refusing to answer questions. His attorney Mark Pollard said Hamilton would consider whether or not to resign in the “next few days” and called the charges “flimsy.”
On Thursday afternoon, City Hall announced that Hamilton had resigned.
‘I Need Those Done’
One of the beneficiaries of Lewis-Martin’s interventions was developer Tian Ji Li, a major political player in the city’s Chinese American community during Adams’ 2021 mayoral run, when he founded a coalition of provincial and business associations known as the Alliance of Asian American Friends.
The Alliance, which sources say was founded with the help of former Adams aide Winnie Greco, held multiple high-dollar events and fundraisers for Adams during and even after the general election that year. Li was referred to in Chinese language media as the head of the Adams campaign office in Flushing.
He was formerly the co-owner of the New World Mall, which played a prominent role as a fundraising site for Adams’ campaign, including dozens of small donations the campaign submitted for public matching dollars. Multiple donors the campaign listed who worked at the mall told THE CITY and Documented that they either did not donate or were reimbursed by bosses. Federal law enforcement investigators raided the mall in February 2024.
At one point, Lewis-Martin pressured Hamilton to ensure a Li associate got a contract for a migrant shelter, instructing him, “I need those done…whatever site TJ wants, I need him to get them. Because that’s our fucking people.”
Often Lewis-Martin used her powerful position as Adams’ top deputy to get city agencies to do what she wanted, ordering around the commissioners for the Department of Buildings, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Fire Department to intervene directly and remove obstacles for developers paying bribes, prosecutors alleged.
When FDNY and Department of Buildings inspectors held up approval for a Queens karaoke bar Li sought to open, V Show, Lewis-Martin texted then-Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, “Good evening sis: This is an 11th hour. I sent this info on a prior occasion. Whoever responded made an error. Please have a different set of eyes review the Plan.”
Many of Li’s interactions focused on his intent to capitalize on the Adams administration’s struggle to obtain shelter sites for asylum seekers flooding the city. Within a month he pocketed a $1.2 million referral fee when a preferred property owner he was working with got a hefty $12 million lease with the city Health & Hospitals Corporation for an asylum shelter.
At one point, Lewis-Martin designated DCAS Deputy Commissioner Hamilton as the go-to guy to arrange shelter contracts for Li’s favored property owners. In calls often laced with saltier language, she hectored Hamilton again and again.
“Can you make sure that when I’m sending you a fucking site, [an unidentified city staffer] finds the site I fucking send you.” On another call, she railed, “What’s going on with the two projects I sent y’all…the hotels. Get them both, come on. Let’s do it now. Y’all wasting time.”
In a conference call with mayoral aides, she complained about delays on another favored project, stating, “Move that shit forward unless the Mayor tells us otherwise.”
Often Lewis-Martin’s aspiring rapper son acted as an intermediary for her communications with Li “to insulate [her] from the ongoing bribery scheme,” communicating over encrypted apps, prosecutors alleged. In return, Li wired $50,000 to a bank account for Suave Productions, her son’s business, disguising the payment as a consulting fee, the indictment alleges.
They say she also pressured buildings department and FDNY officials to approve permits for a Queens karaoke club Li owned, including texting the then-acting DOB commissioner to lift a stop work order issued against Li’s company, Downing Street Realty LLC, over a construction fence that was collapsing into the street. The order was lifted three days later.
The indictments make clear many of Lewis-Martin’s cell phone conversations were secretly recorded, and also that she made an effort to keep her conversations cryptic. “He’s working on that other thing with that guy,” she told Li at one point. “I spoke to him today. You know what I’m talking about right?”
When Li was having problems getting Hamilton to fast-track a contract for a migrant shelter at a hotel for a preferred property owner, Lewis-Martin issued a profanity-rich order during a conference call with city workers, “Move that shit forward unless the Mayor tells us otherwise.”
When the Argentos sought her help to prevent DOT from installing protected bike lanes on McGuinness Boulevard, a key Brooklyn thoroughfare used by their Broadway Stages trucks to haul equipment for movie shoots, Lewis-Martin reached out to Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez and got the plan put on ice. In exchange, the Argentos transferred $2,500 to Lewis-Martin’s personal bank account and provided more than $10,000 in free catering for a single Gracie Mansion event, prosecutors allege.
“We do not care what they say,” Lewis-Martin texted Gina on July 8, 2023, referring to activists supporting the planned street redesign. “We are ignoring them and continuing with our plan. They can kiss my ass.”
Lewis-Martin and Hamilton both got home renovations from developer Landau after helping him smooth out resistance from HPD over projects he was building in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and on Southern Boulevard in the Bronx. Landau allegedly paid for $5,000 worth of renovations at a property Lewis-Martin owns, and created a living space in Hamilton’s home for Lewis-Martin’s sister.
Lewis-Martin is a longstanding ally of the mayor’s. Her husband was a partner with Adams during his time in the NYPD, and she has worked as a top aide for him since his days in the state Senate. When Adams arrived at City Hall in January 2022, he appointed her as his “chief advisor” — a vaguely defined title that gave her more sway than even the first deputy mayor.
And she used her position to obtain free food for events she choreographed at City Hall and Gracie Mansion.
At Lewis-Martin’s request, an unindicted co-conspirator paid for more than $5,000 for food at several of these events, including an April 4, 2024, gathering of clergy leaders she hosted. In exchange she helped him resolve issues he was having with city building inspectors who weren’t signing off on a home renovation.
In one phone call she told the unindicted co-conspirator that his architect should tell the DOB commissioner the assigned Department of Buildings plan examiner was “impossible” and “they needed to get rid of her.” Two days later the project was reassigned to another plan examiner. Soon after that, it was approved.
During her time at City Hall, she used that power to intervene in a stunning array of issues, a pattern that continued until last December when she resigned just before being indicted for the first time.
The influence-peddling alleged in the second indictment echoes the charges in the first case, in which prosecutors alleged the developers gave her son, Martin II — an aspiring rapper who goes by the name Suave Luciano — $100,000 to help him buy a Porsche.
These new indictments result from a probe by the city Department of Investigation that continued over the ensuing eight months.
Bragg said the multi-count indictments describe “corruption at the highest levels of government” that “had a deep and wide-ranging impact on City government.”
“As alleged, Lewis-Martin consistently overrode the expertise of public servants so she could line her own pockets,” he said. “Hardworking City employees were undermined, businesses and developers who followed the law were pushed aside, and the public was victimized by corruption at the highest levels of government. New Yorkers are fortunate to be served by thousands of hardworking City employees who embody the dignity of public service.”
DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said Lewis-Martin, at times with Hamilton, the deputy commissioner in charge of real estate at DCAS, “repeatedly and persistently abused her senior government position to enrich herself and her family.” She said DOI has asked the agencies involved in the permits and design determinations referenced in the indictments to ensure “that each agency can review these decisions free of any improper influence.”
Prosecutors also revealed that Li had joined Lewis-Martin and Hamilton on a vacation jaunt to Japan in September. During the return flight, they allege, Li deleted text messages in his phone between him and Lewis-Martin and Hamilton. When the group arrived at JFK, they were greeted by representatives of the Manhattan DA’s office who took their cell phones.
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