A longtime ally, adviser and fundraiser for New York Mayor Eric Adams was suspended from his re-election effort after she was accused of making an attempt at hand a neighborhood journalist a cash-stuffed potato chip bag.
Winnie Greco was outed by a native information group, The Metropolis, for attempting to present money surreptitiously tucked inside a Herr’s Bitter Cream & Onion ripple potato chip bag to one among its Metropolis Corridor reporters after a marketing campaign occasion Wednesday afternoon in Harlem.
In keeping with the information outlet, the reporter, Katie Honan, initially refused the potato chips, which she believed to be a real snack provide, however Greco insisted. Upon discovering the wad of money, which reportedly included at the least one $100 invoice and a number of other $20 payments, she instantly contacted the Adams confidant to return the undesirable reward.
“I can’t take this, when can I give it again to you,” Honan texted Greco, to no response, in keeping with The Metropolis.
Greco later referred to as the cash provide “a mistake” and apologized profusely when The Metropolis contacted her about why she tried to present a reporter who covers Adams’ administration a money reward after an occasion meant to assist his re-election. Greco, who’s Chinese language, stated the act was “a tradition factor,” a place her lawyer supported in a press release to The Metropolis.
“I can see how this seems to be unusual,” Greco’s lawyer, Steven Brill, instructed The Metropolis. “However I guarantee you that Winnie’s intent was purely harmless. Within the Chinese language tradition, cash is commonly given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. Winnie is apologetic and embarrassed by any destructive impression or confusion this will likely have brought on.”
Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams’ mayoral marketing campaign, stated in a press release that “Grecco [sic] holds no place on this marketing campaign and has been suspended from all VOLUNTEER campaign-related actions.”
“We’re shocked by these studies,” Shapiro stated, including, “Mayor Adams had no prior data of this matter.”
Greco has been an in depth ally of Adams for greater than a decade, serving as a conduit between the mayor and the town’s Asian American communities and a high fundraiser for his campaigns and touchdown a task in his administration as director of Asian affairs. She resigned from that function final 12 months, months after the FBI raided two of her properties as a part of an investigation right into a straw donations scheme in Adams’ 2021 marketing campaign.
The probe into the straw donations was one among a number of authorized scandals surrounding Adams, whom federal prosecutors charged final 12 months with abusing his place “as this Metropolis’s highest elected official, and earlier than that as Brooklyn Borough President, to take bribes and solicit unlawful marketing campaign contributions.” The Trump Justice Division later dismissed the costs.
Shapiro stated Adams “has all the time demanded the best moral and authorized requirements.”
Richard Kim, the editor in chief of The Metropolis, referred to as Greco’s money reward “deeply disturbing.”
“The truth that one among mayor Adams’ closest, longtime advisors would try to ingratiate herself to any reporter, a lot much less Katie Honan, with a money reward is deeply disturbing and speaks to a rampant and blatant disregard for the function of a free and honest press,” Kim stated. “The selection of bitter cream and onion chips can also be questionable.”
