Agents Seize Phone From Adams’s Top Adviser and Subpoena Her

Agents Seize Phone From Adams’s Top Adviser and Subpoena Her

Ingrid Lewis-Martin has been close to Mayor Eric Adams for decades, and has cultivated a reputation as a ruthless political actor.

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By William K. Rashbaum and Dana Rubinstein

Investigators on Friday seized the phones of Mayor Eric Adams’s chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, searched her Brooklyn home and served her with a grand jury subpoena, her lawyer said.

“Ingrid Lewis-Martin has been served with a subpoena from the Southern District of New York and her phones were given to the New York County District Attorney’s Office,” the lawyer, Arthur L. Aidala, said in a statement. “She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations,” he said, adding that Ms. Lewis-Martin was “not the target of any case of which we are aware.”

Ms. Lewis-Martin was served with the subpoena and told about the search on Friday when she landed at Kennedy International Airport, having returned from a vacation in Japan, and was met by two sets of investigators, one state and one federal.

The actions appear to be tied to two different investigations, though information about the morning’s events and the nature of the state inquiry was preliminary. Several people with knowledge of the matter confirmed that the two sets of investigators met Ms. Lewis-Martin at the airport, served her with the subpoena and seized her phone.

The developments came just hours before Mr. Adams was arraigned in federal court in Lower Manhattan on charges of bribery and wire fraud. The indictment from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York accuses the mayor of soliciting and receiving illegal campaign donations from foreign nationals, and accepting bribes in exchange for official acts. Mr. Adams has pleaded not guilty.

Ms. Lewis-Martin, who is considered the mayor’s second-in-command, has been friends with Mr. Adams for roughly 40 years and has described herself as “his sister ordained by God.” She has been his top aide since 2006, when she managed his successful campaign for a State Senate seat.

Colleagues in City Hall describe her as the mayor’s political enforcer, a characterization she does not shy away from.

“I’m not Michelle Obama,” she told City and State in 2022. “When they go low? We drill for oil.”

The investigations ensnaring Ms. Lewis-Martin may be tied to the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment last year of Eric Ulrich, who had been the mayor’s senior adviser and buildings commissioner, for taking bribes.

When Mr. Ulrich was still in the administration, he and Ms. Lewis-Martin were considered friends, a former administration official said. Mr. Ulrich was a frequent presence in Ms. Lewis-Martin’s office and when he was indicted, she was upset, the official said.

Though she is not named in the indictment against Mr. Ulrich and three co-defendants, Ms. Lewis-Martin appears to play a small role in it. The charges accuse Mr. Ulrich of using his position to benefit his co-defendants in exchange for bribes.

The indictment features a person identified only as Mr. Adams’s “chief adviser” meeting and speaking by telephone with the three co-defendants as they tried to get City Hall to help with regulatory issues affecting their business interests.

The indictment did not accuse the chief adviser of wrongdoing.

On Friday, Ms. Lewis-Martin was approached at the airport by the two sets of investigators before noon, shortly after her flight had landed, the people said. The investigators from the district attorney’s office, who were accompanied by others from the city’s Department of Investigation, seized her phone and told her they were simultaneously searching her Brooklyn home, the people said.

They allowed her to call her lawyer, and she surrendered her phone in response to a warrant. At roughly the same time, the federal investigators served her with the grand jury subpoena, which was issued by a prosecutor overseeing the investigation into the mayor, one of the people said.