An ally, advisor and fund collector for a long time for the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, was suspended from his re -election effort after she was accused of trying to give a local journalist a bag of fried potatoes in cash.
Winnie Greco was expelled by a local news organization, The City, for trying to surreptitiously involved in a bag of fries of sour cream and herr onion to one of her city council reporters after a campaign event on Wednesday afternoon in Harlem.
According to the media, the reporter, Katie honor, initially rejected the fried potatoes, who believed it was a genuine refreshment offer, but Greco insisted. Upon discovering the cash bundle, which is reported that it included at least one bill of $ 100 and several invoices of $ 20, immediately contacted Adams confidant to return the unwanted gift.
“I can’t take this, when can I return you,” Honan sent a text message to Greco, without an answer, according to the city?
Later, Greco called the “an error” money and apologized profusely when the city contacted her about why she tried to give a journalist who covers the Adams administration a cash gift after an event aimed at supporting her re -election. Greco, who is Chinese, said that the act was “a thing of culture”, a position that his lawyer supported in a statement to the city.
“I can see how this looks strange,” said Greco’s lawyer, Steven Brill, to the city. “But I assure you that Winnie’s intention was purely innocent. In Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. Winnie apologizes and ashamed for any negative impression or confusion that this may have caused.”
Todd Shapiro, spokesman for the mayor campaign, said In a statement that “Grecco [sic] It does not take any position in this campaign and has been suspended from all voluntary campaign activities related to the campaign. “
“We are surprised by these reports,” Shapiro said, added: “Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter.”
Greco has been a nearby ally of Adams for more than a decade, serving as a conduit between the mayor and the city’s Asian communities and a higher fundraising for his campaigns and assigning a role in his administration as director of Asian Affairs. She resigned from that role last year, months after the FBI raided two of its properties as part of an investigation into a straw donations scheme in Adams’s 2021 campaign.
Research on straw donations was one of several legal scandals that surround Adams, to whom federal prosecutors accused last year of abusing their position “as the highest official in this city, and before that as president of the Brooklyn County, to take bribes and request illegal campaign contributions.” The Trump Department of Justice then dismissed the charges.
Shapiro Adams said “he has always demanded the highest ethical and legal standards.”
Richard Kim, the city chief editor, called Greco’s cash gift “deeply disturbing.”
“The fact that one of the closest advisors of Mayor Adams tries to congratulate any reporter, much less Katie honor, with a cash gift is deeply disturbing and speaks of a unbridled and flagrant contempt for the role of a free and fair press,” Kim said. “The choice of sour cream and onion chips is also questionable.”
