Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the former chief adviser to Mayor Eric Adams, is expected to surrender on Thursday on bribery charges involving two businessmen who gave her son a $100,000 loan to buy a Porsche, several people with knowledge of the matter said.
Her son, Glenn Martin II, and the other two men were also expected to surrender on Thursday for arraignment on the charges, which are being brought by the Manhattan district attorney, the people said.
The charges accuse the businessmen of providing the loan to Ms. Lewis-Martin’s son after she helped them resolve an issue with the city’s Department of Buildings in connection with a construction project in one of their hotels, the people said. It is unclear if Mr. Martin has made payments on the 2023 loan, which was memorialized in a promissory note, one of the people said.
The accusations grew out of a broad corruption investigation focused on Ms. Lewis-Martin, who announced her resignation on Sunday — hours before The New York Times reported that a grand jury was hearing evidence against her.
Ms. Lewis-Martin, 63, was one of roughly a dozen members of Mr. Adams’s inner circle who have been ensnared in federal or state corruption investigations in recent months, inquiries that have led to the searches of homes, the seizures of phones and the resignations of some of the most powerful officials in City Hall.
When she surrenders, she will be the highest-profile city official to face charges since Mr. Adams himself was indicted on federal corruption charges in late September — the first sitting mayor in the modern history of New York City to face criminal charges.
Her arraignment is expected to occur during a week marked by several significant legal and political setbacks for the mayor, who is facing trial in April on federal bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud and campaign finance charges and has said he will still run for re-election in 2025.
Mr. Adams has repeatedly maintained his innocence and has said that the charges against him are politically motivated.
On Sunday, Ms. Lewis-Martin abruptly announced her resignation. On Monday, the city’s campaign finance board denied Mr. Adams as much as $4.3 million in public funding for his mayoral campaign. On Tuesday, a federal judge denied a motion by Mr. Adams’s attorneys to dismiss a bribery charge against him and a request from the defense to move up the mayor’s trial date.
The district attorney’s investigation into Ms. Lewis-Martin appears to be ongoing, and there has been no indication that the inquiry has focused on Mr. Adams.
Ms. Martin’s lawyer, Arthur L. Aidala, declined to comment on Wednesday. In a statement on Sunday, he said, “The only thing of which we are certain is that Ingrid Lewis-Martin has served this city admirably for decades in an ethical, moral and law abiding manner.”
A lawyer for Mr. Martin did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for one of the businessmen, Mayank Dwivedi, a hotelier with properties in New York City and the Hamptons, said in a statement that Mr. Dwivedi had engaged in no wrongdoing.
The district attorney “has an incomplete and inaccurate view of the facts,” said the lawyer, Teny Geragos. “We look forward to setting the record straight and proving Mr. Dwivedi’s complete innocence.”
Jonathan S. Sack, a lawyer for the other businessman, declined to comment.
Spokeswomen for the office of the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, and the city’s Department of Investigation, which is conducting the inquiry with Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors and investigators, declined to comment.
Mr. Bragg and the investigation commissioner, Jocelyn Strauber, are expected to announce the charges on Thursday afternoon. Ms. Lewis-Martin and the others are expected to be arraigned later in the day before Acting State Supreme Court Justice Daniel P. Conviser.
On Monday, Ms. Lewis-Martin convened reporters in a conference room in her lawyer’s offices and declared herself “falsely accused of something, I don’t know exactly what it is.”
“I have never done anything illegal in my capacity in government,” she said.
Ms. Lewis-Martin added that she had worked in government for over 35 years, including as an aide to Mr. Adams in the New York State Senate and at the Brooklyn borough president’s office, and as Mr. Adams’s chief adviser in City Hall.
“During my tenure, I have never taken any gifts, money, anything,” she said, adding that she had never arranged for any gifts or money to be given to a family member or friend.
At the news conference on Monday, Mr. Aidala said the Manhattan district attorney’s office was targeting his client for political reasons.
“These decisions are obviously coming from the top, whether it’s to get headlines, whether it’s to figure out a road to get to the mayor, we don’t know,” he said.
Ms. Lewis-Martin and Mr. Adams have been close for about 40 years. Her husband and Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, first met as police cadets in 1984, Ms. Lewis-Martin and Mr. Adams have said.
Ms. Lewis-Martin served as Mr. Adams’s campaign manager during his successful 2006 run for the New York State Senate and then became a top aide at his State Senate office in Albany.
When he rose to become Brooklyn borough president, she served as his deputy and enforcer. She also helped raise money for One Brooklyn Fund, a nonprofit that promoted the borough and Mr. Adams, and which the city’s inspector general later found to have improperly solicited funds from groups with business before his office.
Ms. Lewis-Martin also worked closely with Brooklyn Democratic Party officials while in her role, helping to organize campaigns and holding political meetings in Borough Hall, former aides have said.
She also intervened with city agencies on behalf of business people with ties to the Brooklyn political machine, emails reviewed by The Times show.
When he was elected mayor in 2021, several of Mr. Adams’s supporters urged him not to put her in a position of authority at City Hall. They cited concerns about her history of divisiveness and her ethical probity, according to the supporters who spoke to The Times for a 2023 profile of Ms. Lewis-Martin. Mr. Adams ignored their advice and, according to Ms. Lewis-Martin, let her choose any office she wanted. She became his chief adviser, a role in which she was often considered his second-in-command.
“I wanted a role where I can walk into any meeting at any time, where my voice can be heard any time, anywhere, and that’s what I have,” she said in a 2022 interview with PIX11.
Ms. Lewis-Martin has called herself the mayor’s “sister ordained by God.” In a statement on Sunday, after she announced her resignation, Mr. Adams echoed those terms.
Ms. Lewis-Martin’s son, who is 38, is a professional D.J. who goes by the name “Suave Luciano,” and he has received exposure over the years through both his mother and Mr. Adams.
He has worked as a D.J. at establishments owned by Mr. Dwivedi and talked about possible business ventures with him, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
He also worked a popular Sunday brunch at Woodland, a Brooklyn restaurant run by Robert and Johnny Petrosyants, twin brothers who were friends of Mr. Adams and Ms. Lewis-Martin. He performed at Brooklyn Borough Hall while Mr. Adams and Ms. Lewis-Martin worked there, and later at Gracie Mansion and at the city’s Rise Up concert series in 2022.
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