How a Manhattan bar at the center of a bribery scheme became a hot spot for NYC's political class

When state Sen. Liz Krueger arrived at a fundraiser for Gov. Kathy Hochul in Manhattan one morning in December 2021, she was surprised to learn that the venue was the same unassuming four-story Midtown office building that she’d been in a battle over.

The owner — a wealthy real estate investor named Raizaida “Pinky” Vaid, who claimed a net worth of $133.3 million in a 2016 financial statement — was seeking a license to sell hard liquor at a greenhouse-style bar called the Glass Ceiling on the building’s roof, and Krueger had publicly opposed the application because of noise complaints from the venue’s neighbors.

That bar is now at the center of a set of criminal charges against Vaid for allegedly bribing one of Mayor Eric Adams’ top aides, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, in exchange for fast-tracking approvals from city agencies. The two were arrested late last year, along with Lewis-Martin’s son and another businessman accused of taking part in the scheme. They’re due back before a Manhattan state judge on Wednesday for a virtual hearing on materials that prosecutors are turning over to defense attorneys in what may be the only corruption allegation to go to trial among a litany of charges and investigations that have focused on the mayor and members of his administration.

But in the years before Vaid’s legal troubles began, he and his associates were having a hard time convincing local leaders to support the Glass Ceiling’s application, according to community board and liquor authority records. The local community board complained in 2021 that the bar’s “general raucousness” was disturbing nearby residents since it opened earlier that year.

Krueger had written a letter to the State Liquor Authority advising against the Glass Ceiling’s liquor license application. But soon after she arrived at Hochul’s fundraiser, hosted by a women’s networking company run by Vaid’s business partner, Krueger said Vaid approached her, told her he had a lot of friends in politics — including Adams — and offered to be her friend and hold fundraisers for her too, so long as she reversed her opposition to his application.

“It made me run the other way,” Krueger said, adding that she immediately left the venue.

Through his attorneys, Vaid denied her characterization of the conversation and said he was not guilty of any offenses.

“Mr. Vaid did not commit the crimes charged in the indictment, and he did nothing improper in regard to the Glass Ceiling,” said his lawyer, Jonathan Sack

But campaign finance records, and his criminal indictment, suggest Vaid did have notable connections in politics. Before his arrest late last year, both his building on Broadway, and the Glass Ceiling that sits on the rooftop, became a campaign hot spot for a long list of New York Democrats, including not just Hochul, but also state lawmakers Jessica Ramos, David Weprin and Jennifer Rajkumar as well as New York Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. Adams himself visited the bar at least twice in the days before his 2021 election victory, according to social media posts and campaign materials.

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Ramos and DiNapoli paid for their use of the venue, finance records show. Weprin received his use as an in-kind contribution from Vaid’s company Glass Ceiling Events LLC. Both Weprin and Adams came out publicly in support of the bar’s liquor license application in October 2021. Rajkumar, a close Adams ally who is now running to become the city’s public advocate, said she returned campaign contributions from Vaid and a company associated with his businesses after he was indicted, and that her campaign paid for the use of Vaid’s venue, according to her campaign spokesperson Arvind Sooknanan, but the payment does not appear in campaign finance records.

Kayla Mamelak, a City Hall spokesperson, said Adams does not know Vaid but did support many small businesses, especially bars and restaurants, hit hard by the COVID economic crisis.

While a federal judge dismissed unrelated charges against Adams in April after the Trump administration intervened , the criminal case against Vaid and Lewis-Martin continues in state court. The mayor is not charged in relation to the bribery case against Vaid and Lewis-Martin.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office says Lewis-Martin helped Vaid and another business partner, Mayank Dwivedi, by speeding approvals from city agencies, including a Department of Buildings application to alter the Glass Ceiling, in exchange for $100,000 funneled to her son. Attorneys for Vaid and Dwivedi say the cash was a loan, and pointed to an email included in court records that they say confirms their account during a March hearing.

The indictment does not reference the liquor license, but the State Liquor Authority’s ultimate approval — issued a month before Vaid allegedly asked Lewis-Martin for help — was conditioned on alterations to the bar that required the Department of Buildings’ sign-off.

Lewis-Martin, her son Glenn Martin II, Vaid and Dwivedi have pleaded not guilty. Lewis-Martin resigned from the Adams administration shortly before being arrested in December 2024. Her attorney Arthur Aidala said the fundraising events held at the Glass Ceiling have “nothing to do with the current charges” and said Lewis-Martin would not discuss the case or her relationship with Vaid.

But if they’re found guilty, former prosecutors and good government groups say the bribery charges are an example of how routine and legal favor-trading between elected officials and well-connected contributors can morph into illegal bribery schemes.

Campaign fundraisers, donations, letters of support and meetings with those trying to gain influence are not necessarily illegal, and in many ways are “politics as usual,” said Carrie Cohen, a former federal prosecutor who handled public corruption cases at the Southern District of New York.

“On the flipside,” Cohen added. “If someone… is willing to go farther to bribe that official and the official is a willing participant, that’s when it crosses the line.”

A liquor license in peril

In October 2021, Adams was sailing toward a general election victory after emerging from a crowded field in the Democratic primary. He visited the Glass Ceiling on Oct. 12 and posed for a photo with Vaid’s business partner Cate Luzio, which she posted to social media.

“I have faith and hope in Eric Adams that he’ll support our growth,” Luzio wrote on Instagram at the time. “He did so today, visiting the Glass Ceiling and understanding the barriers that have been put in front of us not allowing us to thrive due to bureaucracy and politics (without a liquor license in NYC, you don’t survive Never mind thrive).”

The rooftop bar and restaurant located at 1204 Broadway near West 30th Street features a mirrored elevator that opens to a posh, glass-encased room furnished with booths, high-top tables, and pink and green sofas. The venue takes its name from the proverbial barriers that women face in the workplace, politics and other spheres of life. It’s linked to Luzio’s women’s business networking company Luminary, which occupies two floors of the building.

Luminary members get perks at the bar, which currently serves pricey cocktails with names like the rum-based “Slay the Day” and a tequila-infused “Raise Some Eyebrows.” But when Adams dropped by the Glass Ceiling in October 2021, Vaid was battling with the State Liquor Authority and the local community board over noise complaints. The bar was represented by the law firm Abrams Fensterman, where Adams’ chief of staff Frank Carone was a partner, according to the liquor authority. Carone told Gothamist in a text message that he was “not at all familiar” with the bar, Vaid or Adams’ visits, though Rajkumar noted his attendance at a fundraiser she held there in a video from the event.

I am not aware of any wrongdoing whatsoever in connection with the application.

Cate Luzio, co-owner of the Glass Ceiling

In its opposition, the community board sent a letter to the State Liquor Authority citing “loud acoustic [bass] thumping” and “loud talking” that was disturbing residents of a neighboring building, who had won Krueger’s support in opposing Vaid’s liquor license. The Glass Ceiling sits in the southern tier of her Manhattan district.

But that October, Vaid had found an ally in Weprin, an assemblymember from Queens whose constituency is nearly 10 miles away from the developer’s Midtown bar. Three days after Adams’ visit to the Glass Ceiling, Weprin sent a letter to the community board in support of Vaid’s liquor license, touting him as “a leader within the South Asian community in New York.”

“My Assembly district consists of the largest South Asian-American population in New York,” Weprin wrote. “I can attest that Mr. Vaid has contributed extensively to South Asian-American activism, investment into the community and the support of small businesses locally.”

Weprin held a fundraiser at the Glass Ceiling the following month. Campaign finance records show he raised at least $8,550 that day, though his campaign paid just $150 to use the venue. The remaining costs are listed as an “in-kind contribution” of $3,900 from a company called Glass Ceiling Events that lists Vaid as a member in business documents submitted to New York’s Department of State.

Vaid made a separate $1,000 contribution to Weprin in 2024. Weprin did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the donations and his support for the Glass Ceiling liquor license.

Campaign finance law allows candidates to accept contributions and free or discounted use of venues for fundraisers even after intervening on behalf of a business or constituent.

“I am not aware of any wrongdoing whatsoever in connection with the application,” Luzio wrote of the liquor license bid in response to questions from Gothamist.

Support from Adams

Adams was back at the Glass Ceiling days before he won the general election in the fall of 2021, according to campaign materials. This time, he was there to support Rajkumar, another Democrat from Queens who, at the time, was cementing her role as one of Adams’ closest allies.

“Our future Mayor Eric Adams is hosting a fundraiser for me at Glass Ceiling Rooftop,” Rajkumar wrote in a Facebook post promoting the event on Oct. 22, 2021. “Please join us.” But both her campaign and Adams’ spokesperson Mamelak now say Adams did not host the fundraiser and was only there as a “special guest.”

Photos and videos from the event show Adams and Rajkumar addressing a crowd gathered under the venue’s glass roof. The list of attendees included Carone, then-Speaker Corey Johnson, Queens Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer-Amato, Councilmember Justin Brannan and Rhonda Binda, who was serving as Queens’ deputy borough president before becoming head of the Gracie Mansion Conservancy. Rajkumar also gave Lewis-Martin a special shoutout from the podium.

Rajkumar raised nearly $19,000 that day, according to campaign finance records. But the fundraiser at the Glass Ceiling does not appear anywhere in city or state campaign finance records, as is required by state campaign finance law.

In response to questions from Gothamist, Rajkumar’s campaign spokesperson Arvind Sooknanan said the assemblymember did pay to use the bar. He also provided a contract for the event labeled “Eric Adams fundraiser” dated Oct. 22, 2021, the same date as the fundraiser in question. The contract shows an estimated amount of $8,428.64 for an open bar with beer and wine, hors d'oeuvres and mini crab cakes. Vaid’s attorneys also say she paid the fee.

Sooknanan said Rajkumar had returned $4,000 in contributions from both Vaid and the company Glass Ceiling Events LLC, which listed an address matching Vaid’s real estate office, in January. Sooknanan also said Rajkumar held the fundraiser at the Glass Ceiling on the suggestion of others in the South Asian community who knew Vaid.

“She did not know Pinky Vaid herself and met him for the first time the day of that event,” Sooknanan said.

Three days after the fundraiser, Adams himself wrote a letter of support to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of the Glass Ceiling, according to a copy obtained by Gothamist.

“The Glass Ceiling offers women- and minority-owned businesses a space to cultivate their ideas and meet like-minded professionals,” Adams wrote. “It is my understanding that there exist a few issues to work out with local residents … but I believe a mutually agreeable understanding can be reached.”

It was one of a number of venues that Adams went to bat for with the State Liquor Authority, despite local opposition.

The Glass Ceiling won conditional approval for its liquor license a year later in October 2022, after agreeing to fully enclose the bar area, limit the number of events each month and close the terrace by 9 p.m., according to State Liquor Authority records.

An architect hired by the Glass Ceiling’s owners submitted an application to the city’s Department of Buildings to complete additional construction at the bar in November 2022.

A few days later, prosecutors say, Vaid sent a text message to Lewis-Martin asking for assistance with the construction application, even providing the reference number he’d received from the buildings department.

On Dec. 8, 2022, the pair met and Vaid again asked for help speeding approval for the application, according to the criminal indictment from the Manhattan district attorney.

The morning meeting was memorialized in records of Lewis-Martin’s daily schedule as Adams’ chief adviser. It was the second meeting she had scheduled with someone named “Pinky” that year.

Before texting her son to say that “Pinky” had him “completely covered,” prosecutors said,

Lewis-Martin forwarded Vaid’s request to then-acting Department of Buildings Commissioner Kazimir Vilenchik. Records show the agency approved the application that same day.