The previous longtime advisor to New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams was indicted by the Manhattan District Legal professional’s workplace on Thursday (Aug. 21) together with six others in an enlargement of a corruption probe that has dogged Adams’ administration for the final two years. For Lewis-Martin, it marks the second time she’s been indicted – she and her son, Glenn D. Martin II, have been indicted in a separate case involving corruption final December.
“Should you have been prepared to pay, Ms. Lewis-Martin was open for enterprise,” mentioned prosecutor Man Tardanico throughout opening statements. She and her son have been hit with 4 fees of corruption and bribery. These embrace situations the place the previous chief of employees helped out siblings Gina and Anthony Argento, the house owners of movie and TV manufacturing firm Broadway Phases, by intervening to cease a motorbike lane renovation on McGuiness Boulevard in Brooklyn close to their studio. In return, Lewis-Martin was given perks equivalent to money in addition to a talking position in an episode of the MGM+ TV present Godfather of Harlem.
Lewis-Martin can also be accused of steering shelter offers value thousands and thousands of {dollars} in the direction of developer Tian Ji Li, who was a serious donor for Adams’ mayoral marketing campaign in 2021, utilizing her son as a go-between. Division of Citywide Administrative Companies Deputy Commissioner Jesse Hamilton, who was in control of metropolis leases, and developer Yechiel Landau have been additionally indicted. Lewis-Martin would use her affect with Hamilton to push initiatives ahead repeatedly, usually in textual content messages and cellphone calls laced with profanity. “Are you able to be sure that once I’m sending you a f—-g web site, [an unidentified city staffer] finds the location I f—-g ship you,” she reportedly mentioned to Hamilton in a single name.
Different items that Lewis-Martin finagled have been $5,000 value of renovations to her house paid by Landau in change for alleviating the way in which ahead for his constructing initiatives within the Bronx and Brooklyn, and free catering for Gracie Mansion occasions. She and the opposite defendants have been launched after the listening to with out bail. Hamilton would resign his place later that afternoon.
The indictments forged one other large shadow on Mayor Adams as he runs for reelection in November as an unbiased. It comes a day after one other former aide, Winnie Greco, was busted for handing THE CITY reporter Katie Honan money secreted inside a bag of Herr’s Bitter Cream & Onion ripple potato chips. The incident led to Greco being suspended from her volunteer position with Adams’ reelection marketing campaign.
