A former prime Metropolis Corridor advisor and present marketing campaign confidante to Mayor Eric Adams tried to present cash to a reporter from THE CITY following a marketing campaign occasion in Harlem Wednesday.
The failed payoff — a wad of money in a purple envelope stuffed inside an opened bag of Herr’s Bitter Cream & Onion ripple potato chips — was made by Winnie Greco, a longtime Adams ally who resigned final 12 months from her place because the mayor’s liaison to the Asian neighborhood after she was focused in a number of investigations. She resurfaced not too long ago as a constant presence in his re-election marketing campaign.
On Wednesday, Metropolis Corridor reporter Katie Honan noticed Greco close to the announcement of the opening of Adams’ latest marketing campaign workplace, in Harlem. Greco later texted Honan after the occasion when she noticed her once more and requested her to satisfy throughout the road from the marketing campaign workplace subsequent to a TD Financial institution.
Greco and Honan walked to the Complete Meals subsequent door. Whereas inside the shop, Greco handed Honan the opened bag of chips with the highest crumpled closed. Honan, pondering it was a proposal of a lightweight snack, advised Greco greater than as soon as she couldn’t settle for the chips, however Greco insisted that she hold them.
The 2 parted methods. Earlier than coming into a close-by subway station, Honan opened the bag and found a purple envelope inside full of money, not less than one $100 invoice and a number of other $20 payments. The reporter then known as Greco and advised her she couldn’t settle for the cash and requested if she was nonetheless close by so she may give it again. Greco mentioned she’d left the realm. Honan advised her she needed to take the cash again, and Greco mentioned they may meet sooner or later in Chinatown.
The reporter then texted Greco, “I can’t take this, when can I give it again to you?” She didn’t get a response.
In an interview later Wednesday, THE CITY requested Greco what her intention was in handing cash to the reporter. In response, she mentioned she’d made “a mistake” and apologized again and again.
“I make a mistake,” she mentioned. “I’m so sorry. It’s a tradition factor. I don’t know. I don’t perceive. I’m so sorry. I really feel so dangerous proper now. I’m so sorry, honey.”
She then known as THE CITY again, advising that we name her legal professional, Steven Brill, and including, “Can we overlook about this? I attempt to be particular person. Please. Please. Please don’t do within the information nothing about me.”
“I simply needed to be her good friend,” Greco added. “I simply needed to have one good good friend. It’s nothing.”
Brill denied that his consumer’s cost to THE CITY reporter was nefarious in any means.
“I can see how this seems to be unusual,” Brill mentioned. “However I guarantee you that Winnie’s intent was purely harmless. Within the Chinese language tradition, cash is usually given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. Winnie is apologetic and embarrassed by any unfavorable impression or confusion this may occasionally have triggered.”
After THE CITY knowledgeable the Adams marketing campaign in regards to the interplay with Greco, marketing campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro mentioned Greco was instantly suspended from the marketing campaign.
“We’re shocked by these stories,” Shapiro mentioned. “Winnie Grecco [sic] holds no place on this marketing campaign and has been suspended from all VOLUNTEER campaign-related actions. Mayor Adams had no prior information of this matter. He has all the time demanded the best moral and authorized requirements, and his sole focus stays on serving the individuals of New York Metropolis with integrity.”
Following the interplay on the Complete Meals, Honan introduced the chips bag and envelope with a reimbursement to THE CITY’s workplace and handed it over to her editors. THE CITY then contacted town Division of Investigation (DOI). Anticipating potential regulation enforcement investigations, THE CITY didn’t open the envelope or depend the cash inside.
“DOI obtained allegations from THE CITY and declines additional remark,” mentioned Diane Struzzi, DOI spokesperson.
Later Wednesday, federal prosecutors from the workplace of Brooklyn U.S. Lawyer Joseph Nocella contacted THE CITY’s attorneys, and on Wednesday night an investigator retrieved the chip bag containing the purple envelope and money.
The Brooklyn U.S. legal professional has been investigating Greco since early final 12 months after the FBI raided her houses in February 2024 following THE CITY’s reporting on unlawful straw donations raised at Adams’ marketing campaign fundraisers she’d organized.
The DOI can also be wanting into allegations uncovered by THE CITY that she pressured a marketing campaign volunteer to do private duties for her in trade for getting him a metropolis job.
A Lengthy Historical past
Greco has been a fixture of Adams’ political profession for over a decade, throughout which era she helped him increase lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} for his mayoral campaigns and related him to influential members of the Chinese language-American neighborhood whereas escorting him on a number of journeys overseas to China.
She served for a lot of that point as an unpaid, volunteer “ambassador” to Brooklyn Borough Corridor, whereas not taking any official roles for his political campaigns regardless of her prolific fundraising.
As a part of the fundraising, she related teams of marketing campaign donors to Adams, with some contributors telling THE CITY and Documented in 2023 that they both didn’t give or had been reimbursed by managers. Making donations beneath another person’s title is unlawful beneath town’s public marketing campaign finance program, which supplies $8 for each $1 in small donations from New York Metropolis residents.
Greco additionally helped increase funds for a nonprofit linked to Brooklyn Borough Corridor as a board member of One Brooklyn, which touted Adams’ initiatives and raised his profile forward of his 2021 mayoral run.
Over those self same years, Greco additionally collected donations for a nonprofit group of her personal — with the said aim of erecting a “friendship archway” in Brooklyn’s Chinatown that might function a gateway for companies and tradition. That enterprise, which relied on an archway being gifted by a district authorities of Beijing, collapsed, leaving some donors with questions on their contributions.
Her first appointment to a paid authorities job got here when Adams turned mayor in January 2022. Inside days of attending his New Yr’s Eve inauguration on a stage in Occasions Sq. with a small circle of shut associates, Greco was named his Asian affairs director at a wage of $100,000, whereas her niece additionally landed a job at Metropolis Corridor, ultimately changing into one of many mayor’s schedulers.
Greco was so near Adams and his interior circle that his senior advisor, Ingrid-Lewis Martin, was identified to introduce Greco at occasions as “my sister.” Lewis-Martin is at the moment being prosecuted by Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg for allegedly receiving bribes and is anticipated to be indicted Thursday on influence-peddling costs.
In November 2023, THE CITY reported on two cases the place individuals who interacted with Greco alleged that she had misused her authorities place.
A businessperson advised THE CITY that Greco allegedly demanded $10,000 to her archway nonprofit as the price of entry to a Chinese language-themed occasion with Adams at Gracie mansion, for what was a free occasion.
Moreover, a marketing campaign volunteer claimed that Greco promised to assist him get a metropolis job if he helped oversee renovations to her dwelling in The Bronx, which he did. After he was employed by the Adams administration, Greco continued to compel him to help her with construction-related duties and different private enterprise whereas on the job, the aide claimed.
In an uncommon association, Greco additionally lived for almost 9 months in a two-room suite at a Queens resort that was beneath metropolis contract to deal with previously incarcerated people.
The mayor’s press workplace and an legal professional for the resort house owners asserted to THE CITY that Greco paid for her resort keep however didn’t present proof.
The town Division of Investigation opened a probe in November 2023 after THE CITY’s reporting. In February 2024, the FBI raided Greco’s Bronx dwelling and a second home close by she had bought not too long ago. She then went on medical depart for a number of months and got here again to Metropolis Corridor with a brand new function, and an elevated wage of near $200,000.
She resigned from the mayor’s workplace in October.
