"Ingrid Madam is needed"

An indictment, an extradition, and the latest with the mayor #106

Last year, on disposable camera

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the mayor’s closest (now former) aide, was indicted Thursday alongside her 38-year-old son, Glenn Martin II, and two hotel developers on bribery and other charges.

There’s a lot to say, and my colleague Greg Smith was in the courtroom for it all, so read our coverage. She announced her departure from City Hall last weekend, and then on Monday had a press conference with her lawyer explaining that they expected an indictment that week but she was being wrongfully accused, whatever she was accused of.

The charges lay out a scheme where she and her son allegedly benefitted financially by helping out hotel developers with buildings department permits and other city issues. Using encrypted apps, they would message Lewis-Martin and Martin II for help after permits were rejected or work wasn’t moving fast enough.

“Other email from Gary: Permits rejected?”one of the developers wrote, according to the complaint. He then sent another message: “Ingrid Madam [sic] is needed.”

Martin II, a DJ and would-be Chick-fil-A franchise owner, allegedly used money from the scheme to buy a Porsche that prosecutors say his mom knew all about.

Lewis-Martin appeared unfazed by the charges on Thursday, as she walked defiantly in handcuffs into court. She and her son plead not guilty. You can read the full statement of facts on the case here.

And our full coverage of Adams World: Investigated here.

Meanwhile, around the same time as the unsealing of this indictment, Luigi Mangione was extradited back to New York. He flew to MacArthur Airport on Long Island and then took a helicopter to Manhattan, landing at a heliport not too far from the courthouse.

And Mayor Eric Adams was front and center, bringing along many team members (like his deputy mayor for communications??) for some reason.

As to why he went, he told PIX 11’s Dan Mannarino: “I’m not going to just allow him into the city. I wanted to look him in the eye and say you carried out this terroristic act in my city, the city that the people of New York love.”

We all know that social media isn’t real life, but the reaction to both the cinematic show and the mayor’s presence in it was swift and not positive. I’ll let you all find some of those posts on your own, but here is some coverage of the Mangione case.

THE CITY had another amazing week of stories, many of them investigations crucial to the lives of New Yorkers. Take your time to read them (and remember if you’re feeling generous we would love any donations. Seeing a wealthy relative around the holidays? Mention your friends in local news!)

↣ It takes a long, long time to make subway stations accessible.↣
↣ The Adams campaign was denied first chunk of matching funds. And they won’t answer questions.
↣ There’s now a ban on off-brand e-bike batteries.
↣ Jimmy Oddo is going to be the next sanitation commissioner, per multiple sources.
↣ Two arrested at Teamsters strike at Amazon warehouse in Maspeth.
↣ Helping homeowners go green.
↣ The NYPD continues engaging in deadly car pursuits.
↣ The city billed the family of one man killed on a pursuit for damage to a cop car.
↣ This union happens to be management’s best friend.

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And now another note on Mayor Adams. He appears to have read this piece I wrote for Nieman Lab, which was why he took time out of his Monday off-topic press conference to go after me personally at the start of a rant about how it’s up to him to protect the public from the press and to hold us accountable.

It was a solid kicker on an already absurd circus, where his press secretary Kayla Mamalek — who dislikes when I call her out publicly — interrupted multiple reporters as they tried to ask basic questions about the incoming president and the mayor’s now-indicted former top aide. “He already answered that,” she said, before hearing what was being asked. She’s a mindreader now, too.

Errol Louis expertly wrote about Adams and the press for New York Magazine, noting the foolishness of ratcheting up a war on the press as legal troubles continue. Reporters have to write about your indictment, about federal raids of your staffers’s homes, about your dismal approval numbers. But the mayor sees any article that isn’t “this guy is amazing” as an attack on him, and his communications team thinks they can tell people what to ask in an attempt to control a group of people who ask questions for a living. He even tried to imply that reporters — always painted as elites despite making way, way, way, way less than most of his staff — are all living on the Upper West Side (universal code for rich and white) at a town hall there Monday night. Imagine saying this out loud when some people in your communications staff have city-funded drivers taking them to work?

People will sometimes bring up to me how toxic things are between the press and the mayor and his team. We all play a role; reporters have sharp elbows, we get in bad moods, we can be hotheads. A lot of the toxicity is seen publicly, which is where a journalist’s power is. What’s not seen is the reason, at least for me, for our public displays of rudeness — the behind-the-scenes silliness, attempts to block information, attempts to undermine basic requests, and ignoring basic questions. This where the mayor’s team exerts their power.

Many people within the mayor’s press office seem to view the reporter relationship paternalistically. They think the press should respect them simply because they were appointed to the job, while also doing everything in their power to fuck with us. But as the mayor often says, we are not new to this, we are true to this.

I’ve covered many elected officials and city agencies and have dealt with many press people. I’ve even seen quite a few cycle through City Hall. Most have moved on and we are still here, covering new mayors and new council members and new press people who feel like they’re on top of the mountain. Sometimes I have to sit and think of the names of all those people I’ve dealt with, people who at one time acted like the most powerful people in New York City as they, too, tried to block reporters from information. What were their names again? Were they at EDC or HRA or did they work directly for de Blasio? I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.

We cycle through as reporters, too, but our mission stays the same: Cover the powerful, tell the truth, be fair (and not just blindly favorable, which is how this administration views fairness.) Any public official should know better than to wage a war against the press when they already struggle to get their message across to the public. How will this all shake out for Mayor Adams? We’ll know in a few months, in more ways than one. Whatever happens, we’ll be here.

Have an amazing holiday, whatever you celebrate, and thank you for reading!!