(Bloomberg) -- Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the top adviser to New York Mayor Eric Adams, resigned abruptly ahead of what her lawyer said would be her imminent indictment.
“We’re preparing for an indictment to come down,” attorney Arthur Aidala said Monday at a press conference at his Manhattan office. “I am very disappointed in many of my friends and colleagues in the Manhattan DA’s office.”
Aidala sharply criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which is investigating Lewis-Martin. He said prosecutors had denied her the opportunity to explain herself in an interview, although Aidala did say that he had met with them.
The DA’s office is “taking texts and emails out of context” and “creating a narrative that gets you where you want to go as opposed to getting you to the truth, as opposed to getting you where justice would lead you,” Aidala said.
Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for Bragg’s office, said in a statement that it would be inappropriate to respond to Aidala because the office “acts with the utmost integrity.”
Lewis-Martin’s sudden resignation Sunday, nearly a month ahead of her previously announced plans to retire, marked another significant departure from Adams’ inner circle as he faces a federal corruption trial in a separate case.
Prosecutors in Bragg’s office were looking into possible crimes, including bribery and money laundering, the New York Times reported in October. Lewis-Martin has denied any wrongdoing and continued to insist on her innocence Monday.
“I have to answer to a higher authority,” Lewis-Martin said at the press conference. “My parents raised us that when you do something wrong you take responsibility,” she said, adding, “I’ve never done anything illegal in my capacity in government.”
Lewis-Martin, one of Adams’ closest confidants and longest-serving aides, is one of a dozen senior administration officials who have retired or resigned since late September, when Adams became the first New York City mayor in modern history to be indicted on federal corruption charges, by the Manhattan US attorney’s office.
She has been scrutinized as part of the multiple investigations into Adams and his administration, with investigators seizing her phone when she returned from a trip to Japan the day after the mayor was indicted.
(Updates with statement from Manhattan DA’s office in fifth paragraph)
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