New York City Mayor Eric Adams denied knowledge that a former top aide and campaign volunteer attempted to give a reporter cash hidden inside a bag of potato chips.<\/p>\n
On its website, The City newspaper said Winnie Greco handed reporter Katie Honan the opened bag of Herr\u2019s Sour Cream & Onion potato chips.<\/p>\n
Inside was a red envelope stuffed with cash<\/a>, according to The City. <\/p>\n The outlet, which stated it did not open the envelope or count the money, reported the incident to the city Department of Investigation. The DOI did not comment to The City.<\/p>\n Adams\u2019 campaign said Greco, who resigned as the mayor\u2019s liaison to the Asian community last year, did not have a position with the campaign.<\/p>\n Since she resigned<\/a> as Adams\u2019 director of Asian affairs last fall, Greco has occasionally been seen at Adams campaign events. Before her resignation, Greco had served as Adams\u2019 longtime liaison with the city\u2019s Chinese American community. She was also a prolific fundraiser for Adams\u2019 campaigns.<\/p>\n In February of 2024, federal agents searched<\/a> two properties belonging to Greco. Authorities didn\u2019t explain what the investigation was about, and Greco has not been charged with committing a crime, but she was a number of close aides to Adams who resigned or were fired amid the federal scrutiny.<\/p>\n Following the alleged potato chip incident, Greco has been suspended from volunteer campaign activities, the campaign said.<\/p>\n A campaign spokesman told The City that Adams was not aware of Greco\u2019s attempted payoff to the reporter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are shocked by these reports,\u201d the spokesman said. \u201cWinnie Grecco [sic] holds no position in this campaign and has been suspended from all VOLUNTEER campaign-related activities. Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter. He has always demanded the highest ethical and legal standards, and his sole focus remains on serving the people of New York City with integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n Greco told The City that she made a \u201cmistake\u201d and that the cash-filled envelope inside the potato chip bag was \u201ca culture thing.\u201d<\/p>\n She then told the outlet to contact her attorney, Steven Brill.<\/p>\n \u201cI can see how this looks strange,\u201d Brill told The City. \u201cBut I assure you that Winnie\u2019s intent was purely innocent. In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. Winnie is apologetic and embarrassed by any negative impression or confusion this may have caused.\u201d<\/p>\n Tainted by scandal, Adams is running for re-election as an independent. He will face Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa in the November election.<\/p>\n A separate federal investigation into Adams led to a 2024 indictment<\/a> accusing the mayor of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel discounts from a Turkish official and others \u2014 and returning the favors by, among other things, helping Turkey open a diplomatic building without passing fire inspections.<\/p>\n A federal judge dismissed the case<\/a> in April after the Justice Department ordered prosecutors<\/a> to drop the charges, arguing that the case was interfering with the mayor\u2019s ability to aid President Donald Trump\u2019s crackdown on illegal immigration.<\/p>\n The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Mayor Eric Adams denied knowledge that a former top aide and campaign volunteer attempted to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-165220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115069794667372980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}