NYC Mayor Adams' adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin was joined on trip to Japan by lobbyist, City Hall staffer

Chris Sommerfeldt and Graham Rayman, New York Daily News on Oct 4, 2024

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NEW YORK — Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Mayor Eric Adams’ embattled chief adviser, and former state Sen. Jesse Hamilton were joined on their recent trip to Japan by registered lobbyist Adam Clayton Powell IV and Lisa Lashley, a senior City Hall official overseeing hiring efforts, the Daily News has learned.

The trip, which Lewis-Martin has characterized as a vacation, burst into the headlines after The News reported that both she and Hamilton, now a top real estate official in Adams’ administration, had their cellphones seized by Manhattan district attorney investigators at JFK Airport last Friday immediately upon returning from Japan.

Diana Boutross, a top executive at Cushman & Wakefield, one of the city’s largest real estate firms, was also on the Japan trip, as first reported by The News earlier this week. On Friday, sources confirmed Lashley, the director of the mayor’s office of appointments, as well as Clayton Powell IV were on the trip, too.

It remains unclear what investigation prompted the DA investigators to take phones from Lewis-Martin and Hamilton at JFK, an action that came the day after Adams was indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a separate probe into his Turkish government ties. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A spokeswoman for the mayor said his office doesn’t comment on “personal trips,” and Lashley declined to comment.

Clayton Powell IV confirmed via text he was with Lewis-Martin and Hamilton in Japan.

“Vacation,” he wrote when asked about the purpose of the trip. Clayton Powell IV stopped responding when asked if he was also approached by investigators upon getting back to New York.

Clayton Powell IV has lobbied a number of top Adams administration officials — including Hamilton — on behalf of private business interests. Before joining him on the Japan trip, Clayton Powell IV earlier this year lobbied Hamilton directly on behalf of Totem Holdings, a construction firm that’s seeking to build a homeless shelter in Harlem, city records show.

Others in the Adams administration Clayton Powell IV has lobbied directly on behalf of a variety of private interests in 2023 and this year include the mayor, Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks and Tim Pearson, Adams’ recently resigned public safety adviser.

Clayton Powell IV, a Democrat whose tenure as a state Assembly member representing Harlem was marred by multiple scandals, represented a Manhattan district that includes East Harlem between 2001 and 2010.

While in the state Legislature, Clayton Powell IV drew intense controversy after being arrested for driving drunk in 2008. He later got convicted of a misdemeanor of driving under the influence, was fined $300 and had his license suspended. He didn’t run for reelection in the Assembly after the conviction and instead mounted an unsuccessful bid for Congress.

Years earlier, also while in the Assembly, a 19-year-old aide to Clayton Powell IV filed a police report in 2004 accusing him of rape. He vehemently denied the accusation and charges were never brought against the lawmaker, who’s the son of late Harlem Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Boutross’ firm, Cushman & Wakefield, is one of the city’s largest real estate firms.

City records show the firm holds multiple contracts worth tens of millions of dollars with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the agency where Hamilton serves as deputy commissioner for real estate services, a post that comes with overseeing the city government’s sprawling property holdings.

Lewis-Martin’s detailed schedules, obtained by The News via a Freedom of Information Law request, show she met privately multiple times with Boutross in 2022 and 2023 on official business.

A half dozen of Adams’ top advisers had their homes raided and electronics seized by federal authorities on Sept. 4 as part of a swirling set of corruption investigations. Several of those aides have since announced their resignations, including Schools Chancellor David Banks and Pearson.

At the same time as Lewis-Martin’s phones were confiscated at the airport, her home in Brooklyn was raided by DA investigators as part of the same probe, the focus of which remains unclear.

Federal investigators also served Lewis-Martin with a subpoena at the airport requesting her to testify before a grand jury in connection with the Turkey investigation that resulted in the mayor’s corruption indictment. She hasn’t been publicly accused of wrongdoing by any investigators to date, and neither has any of her Japan trip companions.

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(With Molly Crane-Newman.)