More Adams Associates and Supporters Are Said to Face Corruption Charges

Several associates and supporters of Mayor Eric Adams are expected to face corruption charges in the coming days, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, in cases that could serve as a potent reminder of the scandals still marring his mayoralty.

The mayor, who is just months away from facing voters in his bid for a second term leading New York City, is not expected to be charged. But the defendants, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, are expected to include his closest political ally and former chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, and her son, both of whom are already facing corruption charges handed up late last year.

Also expected to face charges are the mayor’s friend Jesse Hamilton, a former state senator whom Mr. Adams installed in a powerful city job, and two influential supporters, Gina and Tony Argento, siblings who run a prominent soundstage company and who, with their employees, have donated more than $20,000 to Mr. Adams’s mayoral campaigns.

Details of the charges remain unclear. But the defendants are expected to surrender on Thursday morning to be arraigned on several indictments, the people said. The charges expected to be announced Thursday stem from the corruption investigation that led to the indictment last year against Ms. Lewis-Martin; her son, Glenn D. Martin II; and two businessmen.

Like the earlier indictment, the new charges are being brought by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, and the city’s Department of Investigation.

The charges are expected to arrive as the mayor is desperately trying to revive his political image. Polls have consistently shown him lagging in third or fourth place, his administration hamstrung by a drumbeat of corruption scandals and his apparent alliance with President Trump.

”Mayor Adams was not involved in this matter and has not been accused of or implicated in any wrongdoing,” his spokeswoman, Kayla Mamelak Altus, said. “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.”

She added, “Ingrid Lewis-Martin no longer works for this administration.”

The latest accusations are expected to include at least one bribery scheme in which some of the defendants allegedly sought to influence policy through well-connected mayoral associates by supplying favors to Ms. Lewis-Martin, who has in the past called herself Mr. Adams’s “sister ordained by God.”

Ms. Lewis-Martin, who resigned last year days before the first indictment was announced, had been viewed as the second-most powerful person at City Hall and is believed to be at the center of all or most of the charges in the new case, some of the people said.

Arthur L. Aidala, a lawyer for Ms. Lewis-Martin, confirmed in a statement that she will be arraigned on Thursday and said that the district attorney had provided no details about the charges.

“She has always served the city with integrity, and she will firmly plead not guilty to every charge,” the statement said. “While the specifics remain unclear, Ingrid is certain of one thing — she has broken no laws, and she is not guilty.”

A lawyer for Mr. Hamilton, Mark Pollard, said his client “maintains that he is not guilty of whatever allegations are in this indictment,” adding that he “has served the city and state with honor and distinction as an elected-by-the-people district leader and state senator.”

Lawyers for the Argentos and for Ms. Lewis-Martin’s son did not respond to telephone and email messages seeking comment.

Spokeswomen for the district attorney’s office and the Department of Investigation also declined to comment.

The new indictments add to the cascade of legal issues surrounding the mayor, despite the abandoning of federal corruption charges against him by the Trump administration’s Justice Department earlier this year.

In the last several weeks, Mr. Adams has seen one associate plead guilty to a federal wire fraud conspiracy charge and another sentenced to a year of probation for the same crime. At least four former high-ranking police officers recently sued the mayor, accusing him of enabling corruption in the Police Department. And a former interim police commissioner, Thomas G. Donlon, has also filed suit against the mayor and some of his top aides, accusing them of running the department like a criminal enterprise.

The charges involving the Argento siblings are expected to relate at least in part to a strange, prolonged saga surrounding a heavily trafficked thruway in Brooklyn.

The Argentos own Broadway Stages, a company that controls more than 4 million square feet of movie and television production space in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn. Their properties have served as the backdrop for prominent productions, including “The Gilded Age,” “Blue Bloods,” “Billions” and “Russian Doll.”

A stretch of McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint runs near the family’s holdings and has been the site of several traffic deaths. A movement to make it safer took off after one particularly well-publicized death in 2021, when the driver of a Rolls-Royce killed Matthew Jensen, a popular public-school teacher, as he was crossing the street.

By 2023, the advocacy appeared to have paid off, with the Adams administration deeming the roadway “dangerous” and announcing plans to reduce vehicle lanes there from four to two, and to build protected bike lanes and pedestrian islands.

But soon, the Argentos began to push back, helping mount an expansive campaign called Keep McGuinness Moving to stop the city’s plan, which the group said would “create traffic,” “endanger public safety by delaying emergency vehicles, and destroy the local economy, businesses and employees.”

City Hall, and Ms. Lewis-Martin in particular, appeared to pay heed, with Ms. Lewis-Martin repeatedly voicing opposition to the proposal, according to city officials. Just two months after announcing the road safety plan, the administration abruptly changed course.

Then, more than a year later — and days after federal and state authorities seized Ms. Lewis-Martin’s phones and searched her Brooklyn home — the city changed course yet again, reverting to a design that more closely resembled the original plan.

Investigators from the district attorney’s office seized Ms. Argento’s phone days after taking Ms. Lewis-Martin’s electronic devices.

The expected charges on Thursday would not be the first time the Argento family has drawn legal scrutiny. During a federal corruption investigation into Mr. Adams’s predecessor, Bill de Blasio, the Argentos’ donations to a nonprofit supporting his agenda caught the eye of prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. But after a high-profile inquiry, they declined to bring charges against Mr. de Blasio, citing the high burden of proof.

In the case last year against Ms. Lewis-Martin and her son, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged them with bribery, accusing Ms. Lewis-Martin of using her position to intervene with city regulators on behalf of two businessmen, who were also charged. In return, she and her son took $100,000 in bribes from the businessmen, which her son used to buy a 2023 Porsche Panamera, prosecutors said.

Federal and state prosecutors seized Ms. Lewis-Martin’s phones on the same day in September 2024 that Mr. Adams was arraigned on federal corruption charges. Afterward, she went on the radio show of her attorney, Mr. Aidala, and said that she and the mayor were “not thieves.”

“We have not done anything illegal to the magnitude or scale that requires the federal government and the D.A.’s office to investigate us,” she said.

After Ms. Lewis-Martin was indicted in December, Mr. Adams defended his longtime friend in an interview.

“Ingrid,” he said, “doesn’t do quid pro quo.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.