Winnie Greco, a longtime Eric Adams aide currently under investigation by the FBI, was at the center of a secret fundraising campaign that secured the future New York City mayor with what appears to be illegal campaign contributions, the event revealed. This came to light from interviews with alleged donors and video footage unearthed by law enforcement authorities. Guardian and City.
Local independent news station The City and news site Documented previously reported on several suspicious donations stemming from a fundraiser held at the home of a Queens mall operator in August 2021. . A low-wage employee at the mall who was listed as a donor to the fundraiser admitted he was reimbursed in cash after donating to Adams at the behest of his employer, an illegal “straw” This is an act that amounts to a donation. Three other purported donors have denied giving to Adams, including a woman listed in the campaign’s financial disclosures as a “delivery worker” at a restaurant in the mall. However, she has never worked or made deliveries.
At the time of initial reporting, Greco’s role in the mall operator’s events was not publicly known. Newly unearthed footage shows aides escorting Mr. Adams to and from the event, stage-managing the candidate’s photo shoot, and the evening’s emcee, Queens New World Mall chairman Lian Wu.・The footage shows them hugging and laughing with Mr. Xiao’s family.
Greco, a major fundraising liaison for Adams, has accused purported donors of false claims that their donations were falsified or illegally redeemed for cash, as previously reported by the Guardian, City and Documented newspapers. Adams also played a central role in at least two other fundraising efforts that he claims led to. .
Last February, the FBI raided two of Greco’s homes and a shopping mall in Shao following a series of reports about Greco from three news organizations.
Stephen Brill, the attorney representing Greco, declined to answer questions about his client’s fundraising efforts.
Vito Pitta, an attorney for Mr. Adams’ campaign, did not respond to questions about Greco’s role in the event or the alleged straw donation, but said the campaign was reviewing the details of the fundraiser.
The footage of the fundraiser, which took place at Hsiao’s home, also calls into question the Adams campaign’s past characterization of the event and his team’s compliance with campaign finance laws.
Last year, in response to questions about suspicious donations, the Adams campaign said in an email to the city that Mr. Hsiao’s fundraiser was funded by people who attended the event that night, and that “many” of those participants claimed to be an employee of a local grocery chain. , partially owned by the Xiao family.
Campaign finance records show that on the day of the event, just under 200 small donors donated to Xiao’s fundraiser, including about 40 cashiers and other employees at Xiao’s grocery chain. included, and each had donated just $249.
But instead of about 200 guests, only a few dozen guests attended the fundraiser, according to the footage. And most of them, wearing dress shirts or dresses and raising glasses of expensive red wine to toast Xiao, appear to be his relatives or business associates rather than his low-wage workers.
Additionally, at least seven of the people listed in the campaign’s financial disclosure as donating to that day’s barbecue also attended the fundraising event, which was held at the Hsiao family’s $4 million mansion outside Newtown. He said he had no recollection of participating. In York City, select people enjoyed catered sushi and lobster.
Discrepancies between footage of this intimate event and the Adams campaign’s description of it as a large-scale grassroots fundraiser suggest that staffers knowingly took campaign funds raised by wealthy interests and funneled them to groups of small donors. This raises questions about whether it was misattributed. Get additional taxpayer money for your campaign.
The New York City Campaign Finance Commission runs a public matching funds program that offers candidates an 8-to-1 match on contributions of $250 or less, and nearly all donations from Mr. Hsiao’s fundraisers are just They were $249 and $250. The small size of most of these contributions allowed his campaign team to apply for more than $300,000 in taxpayer-funded matching funds.
The revelations about Hsiao’s fundraising efforts followed an explosive federal indictment in September that accused Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign of similar conduct. The charges involved knowingly soliciting and receiving illegal donations from wealthy individuals (in this case, donors with ties to the Turkish government) and then passing on the funds. Through small-dollar “straw” donors to obtain additional public matching funds for Adams.
Mr. Adams is charged with wire fraud, bribery, and solicitation of campaign contributions from foreigners, but he has maintained his innocence.
After the indictment, which mentioned Greco without naming him, the longtime Adams confidant resigned from his government job as Adams’ Asia director.
She is currently being investigated as part of a separate federal investigation by prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, which resulted in recent raids on two of her homes and a Shao shopping mall.
As of now, Greco has not been publicly charged with any crime.
Low-wage workers say they were encouraged to donate by mall management
New York City’s campaign finance rules seek to curb the political influence of business interests like the Hsiao family by limiting the amount individuals can donate to candidates who participate in the city’s public matching funds program. .
By January 2021, Hsiao, chairman of Queens New World Mall and a local grocery chain called J-Mart, had already donated $2,000 to Adams, the maximum amount allowed at the time.
But several months after Mr. Hsiao made his large personal donation, his subordinates suddenly started donating en masse, even though few people had previously shown any interest in local elections.
For example, on April 18 of that year, Xiao’s son and J-Mart co-owner William donated $249 to Adams’ campaign. The same day, the campaign reported receiving matching payments from 30 JMart and New World Mall employees, including more than a dozen cashiers and clerks, none of whom were registered to vote at the time.
This bundle of purported small donations brought Adams’ campaign coffers to nearly $8,000 and allowed his campaign team to ask officials for more than $37,000 in taxpayer-funded matching funds.
According to Campaign Finance Commission records, regulators told Mr. Adams’ team that the proceeds from the fundraiser, which was held at a mall restaurant partly owned by Mr. Hsiao’s wife, would be collected if anyone else could. If so, he repeatedly asked them to explain who put it together.
Adams’ team did not tell regulators whether any intermediaries were behind the wave of pre-election donations.
However, several Xiao’s Mall employees interviewed for this article said they were directed by mall management to make the donation. One of the alleged donors, who works in the food court at New World Mall, said he donated $249 on April 18 after someone from the mall’s office approached him and asked for a donation. Another New World Mall employee who made a campaign donation several months later said a “mall office worker” gave him and a colleague a donation form and collected the check at the office.
Some employees claimed to have donated voluntarily.
Yuzan Cui, a former bookkeeper employed by J-Mart, stood outside her apartment door and said she donated $249 to Adams on June 18, 2021, instead of her usual donation of $250. Ta. to his bank account.
But on the same day, 17 of the Xiao family’s co-workers, who also work at shopping malls and grocery chains, each donated the same amount, $249. The donations reportedly came from a fundraiser at a restaurant in the mall, which is partly owned by Mr. Hsiao’s wife. Small donations from the June fundraiser totaled nearly $5,000, and the Adams campaign was able to seek nearly $40,000 in additional public matching funds.
Campaign finance regulators again asked Mr. Adams’ team to identify who, if anyone, was coordinating these donations. Adams campaign staff once again failed to provide answers before the election. This is a common failure of his camp.
At least one New World Mall employee suggested that the Xiao family’s donation efforts at the mall were not entirely voluntary.
The employee, who calls himself a straw donor, said he first donated after being approached by the mall’s higher-ups at work. Because the higher-ups were acquainted with the employee’s boss, a mall salesman, the employee allegedly allowed the upper-level executives to use his identity to make campaign contributions and then refunded them in cash. said.
“I don’t really understand how the donation process works,” said the employee, who requested anonymity for fear of losing his job. “But I gave that person my identity, and that was it. And they paid money to use my identity.”
Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York declined to comment on whether they are currently investigating Lian Wu Xiao’s family in the wake of her attack on a shopping mall in Queens.
Mr. Hsiao did not respond to multiple calls and emails seeking comment prior to this story.
