Adams’ Campaign Rocked by Indictments, Loyalists Remain

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large
“If only there was an Eric Adams for Eric Adams,” retired New York City detective Marquez Claxton told Our Time Press. “It is disappointing that some in the very community that Eric Adams has worked with and served, for decades, find themselves susceptible to propagandists working to undermine a hugely successful administration.”
The loyal longtime Adams ally made these comments even as last week the Adams administration/electoral campaign was dealt two new blows, as two former members of his cabinet faced additional bribery and corruption charges.
Last Friday, Ingrid Lewis Martin, the so-called Lioness of City Hall, and Adams former chief advisor turned herself into Manhattan D.A. Alvin Braggs at the New York County Criminal Courthouse.

This, on top of her December, 2024 indictment. Despite that she remained a volunteer on Adams’ reelection campaign.
The new indictments unsealed were by prosecutors on Friday, Aug. 21st, 2025.
District Attorney Bragg said, “We allege that Ingrid Lewis-Martin engaged in classic bribery conspiracies that had a deep and wide-ranging impact on City government.”
“Ingrid is like a sister to me. I love Ingrid,” Adams told the press. “She’s worked with me for over forty years. I served as a police officer with her husband. I know her son, and I know her, and I know her heart. And she and her attorney will deal with the case that’s in front of her. My prayers are with Ingrid, and I wish her the best.”

Yet, Adams swiftly distanced himself from former Asian community liaison Winnie Greco, who was accused of stuffing a potato chip packet with a red envelope filled with money and giving it to a reporter from The City after Adams opened his Harlem office last Thursday. Greco called it a misunderstanding and was suspended from the re-election campaign.

Surrendering to authorities on Friday, August 21st, Lewis-Martin pled not guilty, alongside her son Glenn Martin II (known also as Suave Luciano), as she was charged with bribery in exchange for curtailing bureaucratic red tape for lucrative city contracts and permits.
D.A. Bragg’s prosecutors and the city Department of Investigation charged the Martin mother and son, alongside seven co-defendants in four other indictments.
Lewis-Martin is charged with acquiring $75,000 in bribes by flexing her favor-trading influence by giving city contracts and fast tracked permits for shelters and bars, from March 2022 to November 2024.

She is accused of taking a bribe to have the Department of Transportation cancel a bike lane on McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and speed up other development contracts. The indictment noted that part of the bike lane deal led to her $806.31 speaking role with actor Forest Whitaker in the Godfather of Harlem, and the receipt of thousands for catering a Gracie Mansion event from co-defendants Gina and Tony Argento. They are the sibling owners of the Broadway Stages production company, who argued against the bike lanes to keep the two-lane traffic flow by their property.

The indictment said that Tony Argento offered to get her into the Screen Actors Guild with more roles on The Godfather of Harlem and Blue Bloods, often shot at his studio.
Lewis-Martin allegedly received a $2,500 payment for the deal. The pitch led to Adams ultimately withdrawing support for the Department of Transport bike lane plan.
As the Department of Administrative Services deputy commissioner for real estate services, former state senator Jesse Hamilton immediately resigned. He was also accused of offering the fast-tracing of City contracts on behalf of Lewis-Martins and having their abodes renovated.
Glenn Martin II, her son, allegedly received $50,000 after she granted businessman Tian Ji Li a $12 million contract for an asylum seeker shelter, giving him $1.2 million.

Li is also accused of repeatedly receiving help from Lewis-Martin regarding building his V Show karaoke bar and FDNY and Department of Buildings issues.
The charges claimed in exchange for work at her home, and that of co-defendant Hamilton, supporting developer Yechiel Landau, Lewis-Martin got various city agencies to push a variety of his projects for him.
She pleaded not guilty, as did Yechiel Landau and Li.
Saying “she has broken no laws and she is not guilty,” Arthur Aidala, the podcaster, and Lewis-Martin’s attorney, said the indictments were “a troubling example of politically motivated lawfare.”

Gothamist reported that in 2020, Adams’ son Jordan Coleman, was given a role as a personal assistant to Forrest Whitaker in the Godfather of Harlem show, and had a job with Broadway Stages co-defendants.
Adams disputed detractors and opponents who questioned whether the city is for sale and whether “It’s Tammany Hall all over again.”
He replied, “No, they’re in their political season.”
Addressing the political headwinds at a press conference, Adams proclaimed, defiantly and determinedly, “Eric is stepping down, no. That cannot happen…I’m never going to quit on the City of New York. We’ve worked too hard to get here.”

Roger Toussaint told Our Time Press that Adams operatives are the cause of the new political commotion, “The latest developments pertaining to the Eric Adams campaign, even if with or without his knowledge and involvement, is the product of desperation. The greater the alienation from the concerns of New Yorkers, the greater the desperation.”
“From this moment until election night will be the rockiest and most testing period for the campaign and supporters of Mayor Adams,” grassroots and religious activist Sheikh Musa Drammeh told Our Time Press. “The real takedown of the mayor will accelerate with frenzied media assistance. Suppressing his poll numbers to create unpopularity will continue because there’s so much at stake.”

Engaged Black observers are in flux about whether to support the City’s second Black mayor, with two months of hardcore campaigning left until the November 4th New York mayoral election.
So many elected officials and community leaders do not want to go on record, but they are privately stating that the mayor has lost his Black base.
With Adams still in the single digits in the polls and front-runner Zohran Mamdani still keeping Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa at bay, the current mayor is dancing on every set trying to convince the electorate that he is still a viable candidate.

This past week alone, Adams rallied the members of the African business community in Harlem, met with members of the Haitian community at Gracie Mansion, and bench-pressed 135 lbs in Crown Heights at the 500 Men Making a Difference Men’s Day.
Teamsters Local 831, the sanitation workers union, endorsed Adams on Tuesday. Mamdani met with Congress Members Yvette Clarke and Hakeem Jeffries at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Bed Stuy, alongside 20 Black clergy.
“I think it was a great meeting from the feedback I’ve been getting from the pastors,” Clarke told NY1. “They wanted an intimate setting where they could really speak to their lived experiences, the lived experiences of their congregants. And I think there was a very meaningful exchange.”