Earlier than final week, Mayor Adams was already scrambling to push previous the corruption considerations swirling round his candidacy.
“I think the people who have supported him until this point will stay with him, but if you were on the fence, I think you’re looking elsewhere,” Basil Smikle, a political strategist who used to function the manager director of New York’s Democratic Celebration, mentioned when requested how he thinks the brand new indictments will impression the mayoral race.
These on-the-fence voters are seen as crucial for Adams to have any form of path to a second time period in Metropolis Corridor.
Former Sen. Jesse Hamilton (left) is pictured throughout his arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court docket on Aug. 21, 2025. (Curtis Means for DailyMail / Pool)
Polls have persistently positioned Adams in third or fourth place in November’s election, far behind Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani and likewise trailing unbiased candidate Andrew Cuomo.
Adams’ poor standing within the polls has thus far been seen by many as linked to his personal federal corruption indictment, which was quashed by President Trump’s Justice Division this spring as a part of a controversial deal that led many to consider Adams is beholden to Trump. A number of of his key aides resigned after being ensnared in federal probes. And, extra not too long ago, a number of NYPD officers, together with Adams’ personal former interim police commissioner Tom Donlon, have filed lawsuits accusing the mayor of permitting the police division to turn out to be a haven for corruption.
The brand new Lewis-Martin indictments are solely prone to exacerbate considerations about corruption and mismanagement in Adams’ Metropolis Corridor, together with among the many enterprise neighborhood, which has not too long ago proven indicators of being prepared to financially again his reelection bid.
The chief, who spoke on situation of anonymity to keep away from angering Adams, mentioned the contemporary indictments might drive some enterprise honchos to Andrew Cuomo, who’s additionally operating as an unbiased in November’s election after dropping June’s main to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee seen as the favourite to turn out to be the subsequent mayor.
“Cuomo’s the only place that’s left,” the exec mentioned.
Mayor Eric Adams speaks throughout a press convention at Metropolis Corridor Friday, Aug. 22, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Day by day Information)
Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran New York political strategist who’s engaged on a number of pro-Adams and anti-Mamdani tremendous PACs on this election, acknowledged the newest Lewis-Martin indictments might harm the mayor’s standing with some donors. Nonetheless, he discounted the concept would end in donors flocking to Cuomo as a substitute, arguing the ex-governor isn’t particularly nicely favored among the many enterprise neighborhood in the mean time, both, following his huge main loss to Mamdani.
“They’re both wounded,” Sheinkopf mentioned of Adams and Cuomo.
Against this, Sheinkopf mentioned the brand new Lewis-Martin scandal “unquestionably helps Mamdani.”
Each candidates had been fast to leap on the indictments as an opportunity to remind voters of the corruption allegations which have continued to canine the Adams administration.
Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani mentioned Adams’ first time period has amounted to a “resuscitation of Tammany Hall-style politics.”
“Mark Twain said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes, and here we are, just a stone’s throw away from Tammany Hall, and we see that rhyme taking place with Eric Adams becoming a living, breathing testament to a continued legacy of corruption in this city’s politics,” Mamdani mentioned Friday, talking in Union Sq. Park, toes away from the notorious headquarters of the Tammany Corridor group that dominated metropolis politics within the early twentieth century.
Cuomo weighed in as nicely.
“I don’t believe that Mayor Adams can credibly ask New Yorkers to give him four more years,” Cuomo mentioned Friday.
“I don’t think he has performed well, and I think that the series of corruption cases against the mayor are damning. And then on top of that was the deal he made with President Trump, where he saved his own hide by turning his back on New Yorkers. And to me, that is inexcusable.”
In his first public remarks concerning the new indictments, Adams on Friday supplied a full-throated protection of each Lewis-Martin and Hamilton, saying he needs them the perfect and that he solely is aware of them as devoted public servants. However talking at Metropolis Corridor, he additionally acknowledged “mistakes” have occurred in the course of the course of his administration.
“We have not always gotten it right,” he mentioned, “but we have never stopped being dedicated to the people of this city.”
The brand new indictments, introduced by Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s workplace, alleged that Lewis-Martin, her grownup son, Glenn Martin II, Hamilton and three enterprise folks engaged in a number of years-long bribery schemes. All six defendants pleaded not responsible, together with Hamilton, who resigned from his senior administration submit hours after his arraignment.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin’s son, Glenn D. Martin II, is escorted by Manhattan DA detectives in handcuffs right into a Manhattan Supreme Court docket courtroom on new corruption costs Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Day by day Information)
Lewis-Martin is accused of utilizing her powers as Adams’ chief adviser at Metropolis Corridor to strain municipal companies, just like the FDNY, the Division of Buildings and the native public hospital system, to do favors for her alleged benefactors, together with securing them migrant shelter contracts and fast-tracking property permits. Her alleged crimes performed out roughly over her whole tenure at Metropolis Corridor, beginning in March 2022, simply weeks after Adams turned mayor, and spanning by way of not less than November 2024, in response to prosecutors.
Hamilton and Martin II conspired within the schemes by serving to advance Lewis-Martin’s strain marketing campaign, prosecutors allege.
In change, the alleged bribers, Queens businessman Tian Ji Li and TV manufacturing moguls Tony and Gina Argento, showered Lewis-Martin, her son and Hamilton with money and different types of presents. In response to prosecutors, the bribes amounted to not less than $75,000, although a few of them weren’t financial in nature, akin to a visitor look on Hulu present “Godfather of Harlem” that the Argentos secured for Lewis-Martin after she helped them derail a motorcycle lane undertaking in northern Brooklyn they disliked.
Tian Ji Li is escorted by Manhattan DA detectives in handcuffs to a courtroom in Manhattan Supreme Court docket on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/ New York Day by day Information)
In his Friday remarks, Adams defended the Argentos, who’re huge donors to his campaigns, as “great New Yorkers.”
“They are beautiful people, and they really care about the city of New York,” he informed reporters.
The most recent bombshell indictments come on high of a separate set of corruption costs Lewis-Martin and her son had been indicted on in December 2024 alleging they took $100,000 in bribes in change for fast-tracking constructing permits for 2 actual property buyers.
Shortly earlier than the December 2024 costs dropped, Lewis-Martin resigned as Adams’ chief adviser. Her resignation dealt a serious blow to Adams, who had already months earlier seen a protracted listing of high advisers, together with his faculties chancellor, police commissioner, first deputy mayor and deputy mayor for public security, resign after being ensnared in federal probes. These investigations haven’t led to costs.
