The previous longtime advisor to New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams was indicted by the Manhattan District Lawyer’s workplace on Thursday (Aug. 21) together with six others in an growth 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, had been indicted in a separate case involving corruption final December.
“For those who had been keen to pay, Ms. Lewis-Martin was open for enterprise,” stated prosecutor Man Tardanico throughout opening statements. She and her son had been hit with 4 prices of corruption and bribery. These embrace cases the place the previous chief of employees helped out siblings Gina and Anthony Argento, the house owners of movie and TV manufacturing firm Broadway Levels, by intervening to cease a motorcycle lane renovation on McGuiness Boulevard in Brooklyn close to their studio. In return, Lewis-Martin was given perks similar to money in addition to a talking position in an episode of the MGM+ TV present Godfather of Harlem.
Lewis-Martin can 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 Providers Deputy Commissioner Jesse Hamilton, who was answerable for metropolis leases, and developer Yechiel Landau had 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 make it possible for once I’m sending you a f—-g web site, [an unidentified city staffer] finds the location I f—-g ship you,” she reportedly stated to Hamilton in a single name.
Different presents that Lewis-Martin finagled had been $5,000 value of renovations to her house paid by Landau in trade 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 had been launched after the listening to with out bail. Hamilton would resign his place later that afternoon.
The indictments solid one other large shadow on Mayor Adams as he runs for reelection in November as an impartial. 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.
