On the heels of the latest corruption allegations against his former top aides, Mayor Eric Adams on Friday said “hell no” to the notion of him “stepping down,” while declining to explicitly condemn their actions.
Hizzoner, during an Aug. 22 City Hall press conference, made clear to New Yorkers that he is not resigning or suspending his long-shot reelection campaign in the wake of four newly unveiled indictments against his former chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“When you were calling around to my staff saying ‘is the announcement today that Eric is stepping down?’ Hell no,” Adams said — a Democrat running for reelection as an independent. “I’m never going to quit on the city of New York, we worked too hard to get here.”
While Adams himself was not implicated in the latest charges, his administration has seen a torrent of corruption scandals over the past two years. Chief among them is his own federal bribery case, which was dismissed at the behest of President Trump earlier this year.
Adams said that he must continue to lead the city because none of his general election challengers — Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, independent former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa — are equipped to handle the job.
“I’m not going to leave this city to a beret-wearing carnival display. I’m not going to leave it to a person who put dangerous laws on the books…I’m not going to leave this city to someone that does not understand what it is to run a city,” Adams said — referring to Sliwa’s appearance, the laws Cuomo passed as governor, and Mamdani’s relative lack of experience respectively.
The mayor has been coming in third or fourth place in most public polls of the race, often trading places with Sliwa, and coming well behind Mamdani and Cuomo.
Adams’ comments follow Lewis-Martin getting hit with state bribery and conspiracy charges for allegedly accepting $75,000 worth of cash, home repairs, and catered meals as well as a speaking role on a TV show. In return, she allegedly used her position as the second most powerful official in city government to perform official favors for several individuals, including fast-tracking approvals for housing developments and killing a street safety redesign of Brooklyn’s McGuinness Boulevard.
The slew of new charges followed a separate corruption indictment against Lewis-Martin late last year, that came shortly after she resigned from her post at City Hall.
Jesse Hamilton, who resigned yesterday from his post as deputy commissioner for real estate services at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, was also charged by Bragg’s office on Thursday. Also charged were Lewis-Martin’s son — Glenn Martin II — and Gina and Tony Argento, siblings who own the north Brooklyn company Broadway Stages.
However, Adams appeared unwilling to condemn any of the actions the Manhattan DA alleged took place within his administration when asked several times by reporters.
“The message I’m sending is something called due process, something we all believe in,” Adams said. “If you condemn someone without due process, it’s a slap in the face of what our constitution stands for.”
Adams even sung Lewis-Martin’s praises when pressed on whether he was aware of her alleged misconduct.
“There were no complaints on her work ethic,” Adams said. “In fact, to the contrary, people knew that she knew how to make sure that the people in this city got the services they need.”
Earlier Friday, Mamdani blasted Adams during a Union Square press conference. He charged that the alleged graft in Adams’ administration is representative of the acute affordability crisis that he successfully campaigned on combating.
“The same tens of thousands of dollars that are alleged to have passed hands from top donors to the Adams administration to the top aide to Eric Adams, are the same kinds of money that keep New Yorkers from living a life of dignity in their own lives,” Mamdani told reporters. “And too often, we understand corruption only through the lens of what politicians have to gain, as opposed to the lens of what the public has to lose.”
