With less than three months to go before New Yorkers head to the polls, Mayor Eric Adams’ reelection campaign has been thrown into fresh turmoil. This time, the controversy comes not from prosecutors or rivals, but from a bag of potato chips.
On Wednesday, The City reported that Winnie Greco, a former City Hall adviser to Adams and until this week a volunteer on his campaign, handed a reporter a bag of Herr’s sour cream and onion chips during a Harlem event. Inside the bag, journalist Katie Honan later discovered a red envelope stuffed with cash — at least one $100 bill and several $20 bills. Honan immediately texted Greco to say she could not accept the money and asked how to return it. She never got a reply. Instead, investigators from the Department of Investigation and the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn later retrieved the bag.
Adams’ campaign moved quickly to distance itself. Greco, officials said, has been suspended from all volunteer activity and holds no position with the campaign. “Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter,” campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro said. “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.”
For Adams, the optics could hardly be worse. If his administration has been defined by anything it’s scandal. His aides have been indicted, federal agents have raided the homes of his staffers, and Adams himself charged with corruption last year before the Justice Department, under President Trump, asked a judge to dismiss the case.
Greco herself has long been a figure of controversy. She resigned as the mayor’s director of Asian affairs in 2024 following an FBI raid on her Bronx home. After leaving politics behind Greco has remained a member of Adams’ entourage, going so far as to raise money for his from the Chinese American community. In interviews this week, Greco admitted the envelope was a mistake, apologizing and describing it as a cultural gesture of friendship. “I just wanted to be her friend,” she told The City. “It’s nothing.” Her attorney, Steven Brill, echoed that defense, calling the cash a token of gratitude rather than an attempted payoff.
Still, the timing raised eyebrows. The chip bag incident came just hours before Manhattan prosecutors announced new indictments against another former Adams adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, on bribery allegations.
Wth Election Day fast approaching, Adams may find it harder than ever to convince New Yorkers that he can restore integrity to City Hall.
