Don’t sour on Herr’s.
Handing a reporter $300 in cash hidden inside a crumpled bag of sour cream and onion potato chips may seem “very unusual” — “but not if you know Winnie” Greco, a lawyer for the disgraced City Hall advisor told The Post Thursday.
Steve Brill, an attorney for Greco, claimed that the former Mayor Eric Adams advisor and campaign volunteer had the “best intentions” when she handed a reporter from THE CITY a bag of chips stuffed with a cash-filled red envelope on Wednesday.
“She has the best of intentions. Her heart is in the right place,” Brill said. “In retrospect, she understood it was bad judgment. Her intentions were purely innocent.”
Hizzoner’s political rivals seized on the greasy incident Thursday, claiming it showed his re-election campaign was “not viable.”
Greco resigned in October from her post as the mayor’s director of Asian community affairs — after she was targeted in multiple investigation — and has long been under scrutiny for ties to Chinese nationals.
Neither Adams nor his campaign are implicated in the chip saga. Greco’s volunteer status with the mayor’s re-election bid has been suspended, said campaign spokesman Todd Shapiro.
Greco, her attorney claimed, considers THE CITY’s City Hall reporter Katie Honan a friend and simply wanted to put some money in her pocket when she handed over the Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion ripple potato chips — with no conception of receiving a favor in return.
“Winnie is fond of her. She looked to her as a friend,” Brill said. “To Winnie, she was giving money to a friend.”
Brill called accusations of a proposed quid pro quo “absolutely ridiculous” and further revealed that neither federal investigators nor the city Department of Investigation had contacted him or his client about the greasy-fingered handoff.
A DOI spokesperson confirmed it had received reports of the incident and sources said an investigation was underway.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo took a potluck pot-shot at Adams Thursday before stating candidly that he believed the mayor’s candidacy is “not viable.”
He handed out bags of potato chips to reporters at a press conference — opening his remarks by saying, “Sometimes a bag of potato chips is just a bag of potato chips.”
“Look, frankly, it is embarrassing for the city of New York, sad for the city,” Cuomo told reporters.
When asked if Adams should drop out of the race, Cuomo said “That is his decision. I don’t believe he is viable.
“It has been the same pattern, just the names change and these constant series of corrupt activities. If you want to call it pay for play, you want to call it cronyism, it’s access to government for donors,” Cuomo expounded.
Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa also got his hand in the bag.
The beret-wearing pol posted an AI-generated comic-style meme on X depicting Adams offering a resistant Sliwa a cash-stuffed bag of Herr’s.
“Winnie Greco tells me if I give this to you, I’ll go from 6% in polls to 7%,” the comic posted by Team Sliwa stated.
— Additional reporting by Joe Marino and Larry Celona
