New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing fresh scrutiny after one of his former advisers attempted to pay off a reporter from The City following a campaign event Wednesday. Winnie Greco handed reporter Katie Honan a stack of cash in a red envelope stuffed inside an opened bag of potato chips. The envelope contained at least one $100 bill and several twenties. Greco resigned last year while under FBI investigation and had been volunteering in Mayor Adams’s reelection campaign. Her attorney claimed the attempted bribe was a Chinese cultural gesture in which money is used to express gratitude. The newspaper The City immediately reported the incident to authorities.

Another one of Adams’s longtime allies, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, has been indicted on a second wave of bribery charges, accused of accepting over $75,000 in bribes in a scheme ranging from 2022 and 2024, while she served as chief adviser to Adams. Last year, Lewis-Martin and her son were also indicted on separate charges of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy.