Winnie Greco, a longtime aide to Mayor Eric Adams, attending an Adams marketing campaign press convention on June 26
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
A longtime aide to Mayor Eric Adams has been suspended from his reelection marketing campaign after she handed a reporter a bag of potato chips containing an envelope full of money on Wednesday.
Winnie Greco, Adams’ former director of Asian affairs, gave the bag to Katie Honan, a reporter for THE CITY, following the opening of the mayor’s Harlem marketing campaign workplace on Aug. 20, the outlet reported.
Honan later found the purple envelope crammed with payments and tried to return it, however mentioned Greco by no means responded. Greco later apologized, telling THE CITY the money was meant as a cultural gesture and never a bribe.
“This was no payoff. This was no bag of cash in a dark alley. Any insinuation that this gift had a nefarious intent to influence this reporter or her coverage is misinterpreted and ridiculous,” Greco’s lawyer, Steven Brill, mentioned in a press release.
“Once Winnie was informed by this reporter that she could not accept it, Winnie apologized and asked for the traditional gift to be returned,” Brill added, saying that whereas it “looks odd” looking back, “if one understood Winnie‘s generosity, and her sincere dedication to the Chinese culture, it would make more sense and have less of a negative connotation.”
Newest in Adams internal circle’s moral woes
The episode provides to a rising checklist of authorized and moral troubles surrounding Adams’ internal circle. On Thursday, Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg filed contemporary corruption expenses in opposition to his former chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, accusing her and her son of accepting $75,000 value of advantages in change for official favors.
After being contacted by THE CITY in regards to the change, the Adams marketing campaign instantly suspended Greco from volunteer duties and pressured that the mayor didn’t know in regards to the incident.
“We are shocked by these reports,” mentioned Todd Shapiro, spokesperson for Mayor Adams’ reelection marketing campaign. “Winnie Greco holds no position in this campaign and has been suspended from all volunteer campaign-related activities.”
Based on THE CITY, reporter Katie Honan noticed no less than one $100 invoice and a number of other $20 payments contained in the envelope. She turned it over to her editors, who contacted town Division of Investigation. The publication mentioned it didn’t open the envelope or rely the cash inside in anticipation of “possible law enforcement investigations.”
DOI spokesperson Diane Struzzi confirmed Thursday the company had acquired allegations and declined additional remark.
Greco has been the topic of earlier DOI investigations for allegedly utilizing her authorities position for private profit.
The probe, opened November 2023, following a report by THE CITY, focuses on claims that she recruited an Adams marketing campaign volunteer to do unpaid renovations on her Bronx house to safe a Metropolis Corridor job and requested a enterprise chief to contribute $10,000 to a nonprofit she led to attend a Gracie Mansion occasion.
The DOI declined to touch upon whether or not the probe remains to be ongoing. Greco’s lawyer famous that he has by no means been contacted by the DOI “either when Winnie was employed by the City and since she resigned.”
Greco has been a longtime ally of Adams, courting again to his tenure as Brooklyn borough presidentPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell
Richard Kim, THE CITY’s editor, known as the tried present “deeply disturbing.”
“The fact that one of Mayor Adams’ closest, longtime advisors would attempt to ingratiate herself to any reporter, much less Katie Honan, with a cash gift is deeply disturbing and speaks to a rampant and blatant disregard for the role of a free and fair press,” Kim mentioned.
Honan added: “As a reporter, I want information, not cash.”
Greco has been a longtime ally of Adams, courting again to his tenure as Brooklyn borough president, when she served as a volunteer liaison to the Chinese language-American neighborhood and as an unpaid marketing campaign fundraiser.
Wednesday’s suspension is the most recent controversy involving the aide.
In February 2024, the FBI searched her Bronx house as a part of a probe into whether or not Adams’ 2021 marketing campaign illegally coordinated with the Turkish authorities to generate donations. She resigned from Metropolis Corridor that October earlier than reemerging as a volunteer on Adams’ reelection marketing campaign this yr.
