A longtime ally, adviser and fundraiser for New York Mayor Eric Adams was suspended from his re-election effort after she was accused of attempting to hand a local journalist a cash-stuffed potato chip bag.
Winnie Greco was outed by a local news organization, The City, for trying to give cash surreptitiously tucked inside a Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion ripple potato chip bag to one of its City Hall reporters after a campaign event Wednesday afternoon in Harlem.
According to the news outlet, the reporter, Katie Honan, initially refused the potato chips, which she believed to be a genuine snack offer, but Greco insisted. Upon discovering the wad of cash, which reportedly included at least one $100 bill and several $20 bills, she immediately contacted the Adams confidant to return the unwanted gift.
“I can’t take this, when can I give it back to you,” Honan texted Greco, to no response, according to The City.
Greco later called the money offer “a mistake” and apologized profusely when The City contacted her about why she tried to give a reporter who covers Adams’ administration a cash gift after an event meant to support his re-election. Greco, who is Chinese, said the act was “a culture thing,” a position her attorney supported in a statement to The City.
“I can see how this looks strange,” Greco’s attorney, Steven Brill, told The City. “But I assure you that Winnie’s 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.”
Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams’ mayoral campaign, said in a statement that “Grecco [sic] holds no position in this campaign and has been suspended from all VOLUNTEER campaign-related activities.”
“We are shocked by these reports,” Shapiro said, adding, “Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter.”
Greco has been a close ally of Adams for more than a decade, serving as a conduit between the mayor and the city’s Asian American communities and a top fundraiser for his campaigns and landing a role in his administration as director of Asian affairs. She resigned from that role last year, months after the FBI raided two of her properties as part of an investigation into a straw donations scheme in Adams’ 2021 campaign.
The probe into the straw donations was one of several legal scandals surrounding Adams, whom federal prosecutors charged last year with abusing his position “as this City’s highest elected official, and before that as Brooklyn Borough President, to take bribes and solicit illegal campaign contributions.” The Trump Justice Department later dismissed the charges.
Shapiro said Adams “has always demanded the highest ethical and legal standards.”
Richard Kim, the editor in chief of The City, called Greco’s cash gift “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 said. “The choice of sour cream and onion chips is also questionable.”
Amanda Terkel, Melissa Russo, NBC New York and Andrew Siff, NBC New York contributed.
