• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Katie Honan, a reporter for The City, was at a campaign event for New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday, doing her job as usual. A campaign volunteer named Winnie Greco, whom Honan had spotted there, texted her and asked to meet her across the street. 

They met, and  Greco handed Honan an opened bag of Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion ripple potato chips. Honan said she could not accept the chips, but somehow she ended up with the bag, and reaching into it found a red envelope containing a $100 bill and several 20s. 

The shocked reporter tried to return it, but Greco was hard to hook up with after that. Honan did what she was ethically bound to do, and brought the bag to her editors back at the office. An investigation commenced. 

Greco was promptly suspended from the campaign, all the while apologizing that it was a mistake. 

Giving a reporter an opened bag of chips might be an innocent error, but not putting money into it. And Greco was not some naïve young intern—she had served as an advisor to Adams. 

I was a little surprised by comments made by her attorney, Stephen Brill, whom I have long respected, as an ethical publishing person. According to The City, Brill said, essentially, that it’s a cultural thing.. “In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude,” he said. 

Maybe.

My wife ran a garment business. A contractor once gave her a gift envelope with $100 prior to our departure for Europe.. This, she was told, is a custom when someone is leaving on a long trip. This had nothing to do with my job as a journalist.

But Honan wasn’t going on any trips that I know of, and it would have been wrong to accept it even then. 

Of course, this episode may turn out to be only a sidebar to more widespread scandals surrounding the Adams administration.\On Thursday, bribery charges against Ingrid Lewis-Martin, former chief adviser to Adams, were announced by the Manhattan district attorney, according to The New York Times. Adams himself was not accused of wrongdoing. 

Meanwhile, all praise goes to Honan and the team at The City. They did the right thing.