Mayor Eric Adams’ chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin was stopped at the airport by authorities Friday and had her phone seized as she arrived home from vacation in Japan, her lawyer and sources told The Post.
Officials with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office were waiting for the City Hall honcho when she got off the plane at Kennedy Airport in Queens to take her device — while federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York slapped her with a subpoena while there, also, sources said.
The federal subpoena sought Lewis-Martin’s testimony as a witness in the federal corruption case against Adams that led to his historic indictment this week on accusations he took bribes from Turkish officials and nationals, sources said.
Lewis-Martin confirmed that she was served with a subpoena to testify before a grand jury during the surprise encounter at the airport — and that she got heated with the feds.
“I have to admit that I wasn’t as polite as I normally am because I was annoyed. And I was like, well, I need a phone. I need something,” she said on her attorney Arthur Aidala’s radio show on AM 970 later Friday night.
“And then I got a little vociferous, and the gentleman was so polite, and he explained to me, Look, we don’t want to make this more than what it needs to be we don’t want to have to arrest you for being non-compliant and you know we don’t want to make this bigger.”
DA officials also raided Lewis-Martin’s home in Brooklyn on Friday and took documents and electronic devices from it, her lawyer and sources said. The top aide also said on the radio show that she had planned to retire “the second week in January,” but will now stick by Adams’ side as he battles his historic case.
“That was the plan, but with all of this stuff I don’t see how that’s possible because I’m gonna be with my brother, you know, because I don’t believe that he has done anything,” she said.
Details about the Manhattan probe remained unclear, but it appears to be a new investigation, or at least one not previously made public.
“We are imperfect, but we’re not thieves, and I do believe that in the end, that the New York City public will see that we have not done anything illegal to the magnitude or scale that requires the federal government and the DA office to investigate us,” she added.
The stunning moves add Lewis-Martin to the ever-growing list of top Adams officials and allies who have been raided or subpoenaed by investigators in the past year.
Friday’s back-to-back actions aimed at one of Adams’ closest allies stem from two apparently different, although possibly overlapping, investigations, sources said.
Lewis-Martin’s high-powered lawyer, Aidala, confirmed the separate subpoena, phone confiscation and raid.
“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,” Aidala told the Post.
“She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations, and Ms. Lewis is not the target of any case of which we are aware.”
Lewis-Martin, a longtime friend and adviser to Adams, had been on vacation in Japan for at least a week, with her absence at recent weekly press conferences held by the mayor raising eyebrows.
The staggering moves came just a day after a bombshell five-count indictment that alleges Adams secretly solicited and accepted freebies and illegal campaign donations from wealthy foreigners, including Turkish officials, as far back as 2014.
A suite of Sept. 4 raids previously saw the feds seize the phones of former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks, among others.
Those raids sprung from corruption investigations by the feds that, so far, appear separate from the probe that led to criminal charges against Adams.
Lewis-Martin previously also worked alongside Adams as his deputy while he served as Brooklyn borough president.
While Lewis-Martin was in that position, Brianna Suggs, who feds allege played a part in a straw donation scheme revealed as part of Adams’ 57-page indictment, was hired as an intern.
A representative for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment. Reps for the Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
-Additional reporting by Ben Kochman and Larry Celona
