A defiant Mayor Eric Adams on Friday refused to condemn his embattled cronies, including freshly indicted longtime adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin — calling her his “sister” and saying she’s been a loyal friend for more than four decades.

Hizzoner convened a news conference as concerns about deep-rooted corruption at City Hall were re-invigorated Thursday when Manhattan prosecutors charged Lewis-Martin — the mayor’s former senior adviser — with a wide-ranging bribery and corruption scheme that also entangled a deputy commissioner. 

“Ingrid is like a sister to me. I love Ingrid. She’s worked with me for over forty years. I served as a police officer with her husband. I know her son, and I know her, and I know her heart. And she and her attorney will deal with the case that’s in front of her. My prayers are with Ingrid, and I wish her the best,” Adams said.

“And throughout the number of years that I have known her, I found her to be a hardworking, dedicated member of city government for over 40 years.”

Adams also wished the best for Jesse Hamilton, his now-former deputy commissioner of real estate services, who was indicted alongside Lewis-Martin for allegedly trading favors for real estate developers in exchange for cash and other perks. Both have pleaded not guilty.

“The message that I am sending is due process, something we all believe in and makes our country, our country different than other places,” said Adams, who faced his own corruption indictment before federal prosecutors in Washington stepped in to scuttle the case earlier this year.

“If you condemn someone without that process, it’s a slap in the face of what our Constitution stands for,” Adams said. “Let the due process play out.”

But Adams’ lovefest didn’t extend to Winnie Greco, his ex-liaison for Asian community affairs and now-former volunteer on his re-election campaign who forced a cash-stuffed bag of chips on a reporter Wednesday.

Greco, who has not been charged with a crime, bafflingly contended the money-filled bag of sour cream and onion potato chips she handed THE CITY reporter Katie Honan this week was a “birthday gift.”

“I have no idea of the communication between Winnie and the reporter involved,” Adams said. “We don’t give money to reporters. I don’t know anything about what took place there.

“We condemn that type of action — if that was done for the wrong reason.”

The one-two punch of Greco’s “gift” – widely seen as a hamfisted failed payoff – and four indictments against Lewis-Martin, who’s accused of taking $75,000 in bribes, threatened to make Adams’ re-election bid even more of a longshot.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo held a mayoral campaign event Thursday where he doled out bags of Doritos and other snacks to reporters, in a cheeky dig at Greco, who used Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion ripple potato chips.

Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, the race’s front-runner according to recent polls, excoriated Adams’ administration during his own event on Friday — painting it as a 21st-century Tammany Hall, the city’s infamously corrupt old political machine.

He lambasted Adams for failing to cut ties with Lewis-Martin and Greco, who were both volunteering with the mayor’s re-election campaign, even after both of them resigned from City Hall late last year while under law enforcement scrutiny.

“It showcases what he is willing to sacrifice, and that is the public in order to protect those that he knows personally,” Mamdani said. “I mean, these are the same names we have read in the papers for months, and now they are back again with new accusations.”

The new indictments also roped in Lewis-Martin’s son, Glen Martin II, known as DJ Suave Luciano, and prominent siblings Gina and Tony Argento, who own Broadway Stages, a film and TV production company, and are donors to Adams.

Both Glen Martin II and his mother are charged in a previous, separate indictment from December that accused them of trading favors with Big Apple hoteliers in exchange for bribes, including a Porsche.

No Porsche was in sight outside Lewis-Martin’s home in Brooklyn on Friday, where her son walked outside wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “Colonial Williamsburg” and refused to answer questions.

“I don’t have anything to say, OK?” he said as he went into a black Audi SUV parked in the driveway, adding that his mom wasn’t there.

Adams, evidently stewing over being blasted by Cuomo, Mamdani and Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa, told reporters he wouldn’t step down and leave the city to his challengers.

“I’m not going to leave this city to a beret-wearing carnival display,” he said of Sliwa, before turning attention to Cuomo. “I’m not going to leave it to a person who put  dangerous laws on the books that hurt us with cannabis to bail reform to 15,000 nursing homes deaths.”

He then attacked Mamdani, who – like Adams’ son – had a rap career before being elected as a Queens assembly member.

“I’m not going to leave the city to someone that does not understand what it is to run a city that went from being a rapper to an assemblyman now he wants to be mayor of the most complex city,” he said. “We’ve come too far to go backwards.”

He also took a dig at Cuomo in the form of whistles left on reporters’ chairs. 

When asked about the whistles, Adams said they were for woman reporters who might have to interview Cuomo – an allusion to the former governor’s sexual harassment scandal, allegations he denies, and an apparent response to him snarkily offering reporters chip bags.

Adams, who himself is fighting an ongoing lawsuit accusing him of sexual harassment, tooted on a whistle as he ended his news conference.

Cuomo’s spokesperson Rich Azzopardi responded with a jab of his own following the stunt.

“If those whistles were used every time an Adams corruption scandal dropped, they’d be broken within 48 hours. The allegations against the governor were false and never went anywhere but Eric Adams,” Azzopardi said.

– Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts