Mayor Eric Adams was riding high in the fall of 2022 when Winnie Greco, one of his best fund-raisers and a top adviser, led him into a glittering ballroom in Flushing, Queens, the heart of the Chinese diaspora in New York City.

2022年秋天，纽约市长埃里克·亚当斯正在春风得意之时，他最好的筹款人之一、高级顾问郑祺蓉带着他走进华人聚居区——皇后区法拉盛一个华丽的舞厅。

She and Mr. Adams took their seats at the head table of the event, an anniversary celebration for a nonprofit with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and watched as the host, Jimmy Lu, rose to address the crowd.

这次活动是一个与中国共产党关系密切的非营利组织的周年庆典，她和亚当斯在活动的主桌就座，看着主持人卢建顺站起来向人群发表讲话。

Mr. Lu bragged in Mandarin about opening a Chinese government police station in the offices of the nonprofit in Lower Manhattan — an illegal outpost that federal authorities would later say was used in a sprawling transnational repression scheme. The police station, Mr. Lu said, his remarks being translated into English, would help “implement the motherland government’s policy of benefiting the overseas Chinese.”

卢建顺用普通话夸耀道，他在曼哈顿下城的非营利组织办公室里开设了一个中国政府警务站——联邦当局后来说，这是一个非法的前哨站，被用于一个庞大的跨国镇压计划。卢建顺说，这个警务站将有助于“落实祖国政府惠及海外华人的政策”。他的话被翻译成英文。

Then it was Mr. Adams’s turn. Taking the same stage, he began to praise Mr. Lu’s group. “This is such an important organization,” the mayor said, “to empower our Chinese American community.”

然后轮到亚当斯发言。站在同一个舞台上，他开始称赞卢建顺的团队。“这是一个非常重要的组织，”市长说，“它为我们的华裔美国人社区赋权。”

Later, after Mr. Lu’s brother Harry was arrested in connection with the police station and charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government, Mr. Adams’s aides would not respond to questions from reporters about whether he heard Mr. Lu talking about the police station, or knew of its alleged role in spying on Chinese dissidents.

后来，卢建顺的兄弟卢建旺因与警务站有关而被捕，并被指控为中国政府的未注册代理人，亚当斯的助手拒绝回答记者的问题——亚当斯是否听过卢建顺谈论警务站，或者是否知道警务站据称在监视中国异见人士方面所扮演的角色。

The episode underscores Ms. Greco’s close and abiding ties to the People’s Republic of China, and the perils that connection has posed for Mr. Adams. And while the federal corruption charges Mr. Adams now faces after being indicted last month are not centered on his ties to China, prosecutors have recently demanded information from him and his staff about that country and others. They have also indicated that more charges are likely — both for Mr. Adams and others in his orbit.

这件事凸显了郑祺蓉与中华人民共和国密切而持久的联系，以及这种联系给亚当斯带来的危险。虽然亚当斯在上个月被起诉后面临的联邦腐败指控并非集中在他与中国的关系上，但检察官最近要求他和他的工作人员提供有关中国和其他国家的信息。他们还表示，可能会对亚当斯和他身边的其他人提出更多指控。

Few aides to the mayor have been more vital to his campaign fund-raising than Ms. Greco. A New York Times examination of her dealings over the past two decades has found numerous instances of close collaboration with people and groups linked to the Chinese government, and a willingness on her part to guide politicians toward pro-Beijing narratives.

在亚当斯市长的竞选筹款活动中，很少有哪位助手比郑祺蓉更重要。《纽约时报》对她过去20年的活动进行了调查，发现她与同中国政府有关的个人和团体密切合作的例子很多，她也愿意引导政界人士倾向支持亲北京的叙事。

Time and again, she led visits to China with Mr. Adams and other city officials and businesspeople — including a 2017 trip with Mr. Adams in which she took thousands of dollars in free travel, federal prosecutors said in indicting the mayor last month.

联邦检察官上个月在起诉市长时表示，她一次又一次带领亚当斯和其他市政官员和商人访华——包括2017年与亚当斯的一次旅行，她接受了价值数千美元的免费旅行。

Her homes were searched earlier this year by the same office that charged Mr. Lu — one that has specialized in cases targeting illegal Chinese influence in the United States.

今年早些时候，起诉卢建旺的同一部门也搜查了她的住宅，该部门专门处理针对中国在美国非法影响的案件。

She has appeared on at least 20 occasions with a former aide to Govs. Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo who is now accused of acting illegally on behalf of the Chinese government.

她至少在20个场合与凯西·霍楚尔和安德鲁·科莫州长的一名前助理一起露面。该助理现在被指控代表中国政府非法行事。

And like the former aide, Linda Sun, did in the governor’s office, Ms. Greco in her city post has steered Mr. Adams away from officials from Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory. In 2016, when Mr. Adams was Brooklyn borough president and Taiwanese officials asked him to attend a reception, Ms. Greco nixed the idea.

就像这位名叫孙雯的前助理在州长办公室所做的那样，郑祺蓉在纽约市任职期间让亚当斯远离台湾官员，中国认为台湾是其领土的一部分。2016年，当亚当斯担任布鲁克林区长时，台湾官员邀请他参加一个招待会，郑祺蓉拒绝了。

“It’s best for him not to go,” she said in an email to his scheduler. “He must be very careful with Taiwanese events.”

“他最好不要去，”她在给他的日程安排人员的电子邮件中写道。“他必须非常小心地对待台湾的活动。”

郑祺蓉（左三）和孙雯（右二）都担任过华人社区联络员，出席过许多相同的活动，经常跟中国政府官员打交道。

Ms. Greco, who has also moonlighted as a consultant for an affiliate of a Chinese state-run news outlet that spreads Communist Party propaganda, declined to comment.

郑祺蓉对此拒绝置评，她还曾在一家替共产党做宣传的中国官方新闻机构的附属机构担任兼职顾问的。

Her lawyer, Steven Brill, said in a statement that she was a “trusted aide to the mayor” before resigning from City Hall on Monday. He added that months had passed since the F.B.I. searched her homes and still there have been no charges filed against her.

她的律师史蒂文·布里尔在声明中表示，周一从市政厅辞职之前，她是“市长值得信赖的助手”。他还说，联邦调查局搜查她的家已经过去几个月了，但仍没有对她提出任何指控。

“For the last 25 years, Winnie Greco has dedicated her life to the betterment of New Yorkers, and particularly the Asian community,” he said.

他说：“在过去的25年里，郑祺蓉毕生致力于改善纽约人的生活，尤其是亚裔社区。”

Despite some similarities with Ms. Sun, Ms. Greco has fared differently in her government job. Ms. Hochul cut ties with Ms. Sun well before federal prosecutors accused Ms. Sun of taking millions of dollars in payoffs in exchange for furthering China’s agenda. Ms. Sun has pleaded not guilty.

尽管与孙雯有相似之处，但郑祺蓉的政府工作情况有所不同。霍楚尔与孙雯断绝关系是在联邦检察官指控孙雯为推动中国议程收受了数百万美元的贿赂之前。孙雯已表示不认罪。

By contrast, Mr. Adams appeared to bring Ms. Greco deeper into the fold after the searches of her homes — and after the city opened an investigation into whether she improperly used a city employee to help renovate her house. That investigation remains open.

相比之下，在联邦官员搜查了郑祺蓉的住所，市政府开始调查郑祺蓉是否不正当地使用了一名市政府雇员来帮助她翻修房屋之后，亚当斯似乎与郑祺蓉的关系更紧密了。市政府的调查仍在进行中。

自2014年担任布鲁克林区区长以来，亚当斯一直与郑祺蓉共事。

When Ms. Greco resigned last week, Mr. Adams issued a brief statement through a spokesman thanking her for her service to the city.

郑祺蓉上周辞职后，亚当斯通过发言人发表了一份简短声明，感谢她为纽约市所做的工作。

Last month, the mayor’s chief counsel, a former federal prosecutor named Lisa Zornberg, had given him an ultimatum: Cast out Ms. Greco and other aides who were under federal investigation or risk losing Ms. Zornberg herself. When the mayor refused, she resigned on a Saturday night.

上个月，市长的首席法律顾问、曾担任联邦检察官的丽莎·佐恩伯格曾向亚当斯发出最后通牒：赶走郑祺蓉和其他正在接受联邦调查的助手，否则会面临佐恩伯格离开的风险。市长拒绝那样做后，佐恩伯格在一个周六的晚上辞职。

But the scrutiny of Ms. Greco’s actions has occurred amid growing concerns about Chinese influence efforts in New York and across the United States. Apart from the recent indictment of Ms. Sun, and the ongoing Chinatown police station case, federal prosecutors have accused numerous others — including a former New York police officer and a scholar-turned-spy — of stalking or spying on Chinese dissidents on behalf of China.

对郑祺蓉所作所为的审查发生在人们对中国在纽约和美国各地的影响力日益担忧的背景下。除了最近对孙雯的起诉以及正在进行的纽约唐人街中国警务站案之外，联邦检察官还对许多其他人提起了指控，包括纽约市警察局的一名退休警官和一名学者出身的间谍，他们代表中国跟踪或监视海外的异见人士。

Mr. Adams’s office, citing the ongoing investigation, referred questions about Ms. Greco to the mayor’s lawyer, who did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

亚当斯的办公室以联邦调查仍在进行为由，让记者将有关郑祺蓉的问题提交给市长的律师，但该律师没有马上回复记者寻求置评的电子邮件。

John Liu, a state senator from Queens whose own mayoral campaign was derailed by a straw donor scandal in 2013, said he has known both Ms. Sun and Ms. Greco for years. He acknowledged that they served in similar roles for the governor and mayor but cautioned against a rush to judgment.

纽约州参议会议员刘醇逸来自皇后区，他受“稻草人捐款”丑闻的影响，在2013年的市长竞选中失利。刘醇逸说，他认识孙雯和郑祺蓉已有多年。他承认她们分别在州长和市长手下做过类似的工作，但劝诫不要急于下结论。

“Winnie strikes me as a person who doesn’t engage in what she does for pecuniary gain,” he said. “It’s more for prestige and community respect.”

“温妮（即郑祺蓉——译注）给我的印象是，她做事情不是为了金钱方面的利益，”刘醇逸说。“更多地是为了得到声望和社区的尊重。”

An honorary ambassador

荣誉大使

About a month after being elected Brooklyn borough president, Mr. Adams posted on Twitter about a new addition to his team.

当选布鲁克林区区长约一个月后，亚当斯曾在Twitter上发过他的团队增添了一名新成员的消息。

“Tonight,” he wrote, “I’m naming #SunsetPark’s Winnie Greco to be the first of Borough Hall’s honorary ambassadors, representing our #Chinese community!”

“今晚，”他写道，“我任命#SunsetPark的郑祺蓉为区政府的第一位荣誉大使，代表我们的#华人社区！”

For Ms. Greco, it was both a continuation and expansion of her previous role at Brooklyn Borough Hall, where she had worked as a volunteer for Mr. Adams’s predecessor while being “chartered by multiple Chinese municipalities to represent their investment interests” in the United States, according to a memo a business consultant wrote while Ms. Greco was pitching a business venture in New York’s Hudson Valley.

对郑祺蓉来说，这是她以前在布鲁克林区政府职责的延续和扩大，她曾为亚当斯的前任做志愿者，同时“被多个中国市级政府给予代表这些城市（在美国的）投资利益的特许”——据郑祺蓉在纽约的哈德逊河谷推销一个商业项目时，一名商业顾问所写的备忘录记载。

The deal involved buying part of a recently shuttered prison complex in Warwick, N.Y., as the site of an agriculture-based trade venture with China, and town officials were thrilled at the prospect.

该项目涉及购买纽约州沃威克市不久前关闭的一个监狱综合体的部分建筑，将其作为与中国开展农业贸易的场所，市政府官员对这一前景感到兴奋。

She eventually made a down payment of about $200,000 to buy part of the prison. But, almost as quickly, the deal collapsed, and she walked away, having lost the down payment, said Michael Sweeton, the town supervisor. Almost a decade later, a judge ordered Ms. Greco to pay almost $23,000 owed to a local law firm — a sum that remained unpaid as of mid-September, court records show.

郑祺蓉最终为购买部分监狱建筑支付了约20万美元的首付款。但这笔交易很快就失败了，郑祺蓉退出交易，赔了首付款，沃威克市长迈克尔·斯威顿说道。将近十年后，一名法官命令郑祺蓉向当地一家律师事务所支付近2.3万美元的欠款，法庭记录显示，截至今年9月中旬，这笔钱仍未付清。

When Mr. Adams took over as borough president in 2014, he and Ms. Greco wasted little time in promoting another project meant to cement Brooklyn’s position as a center of Chinese American culture: a giant archway in Sunset Park that would bestow honor and dazzle on the entrance of one of the fastest growing Chinese enclaves outside of Asia.

亚当斯2014年担任布鲁克林区长后，他和郑祺蓉马上采取行动，推动旨在加强布鲁克林作为美国华人文化中心地位的另一个项目：日落公园的​​一个巨型牌楼，这本是为了给亚洲以外发展最快的华人聚居区之一的入口增添荣誉和光彩。

Mr. Adams traveled to China with Ms. Greco and other borough representatives to promote the project, with the cost split between the municipal governments they visited and a nonprofit Ms. Greco formed to further the archway project, city records show.

市政府记录显示，为了推动这个项目，亚当斯和郑祺蓉以及纽约市其他行政区的代表们一起去了中国。按照设想，牌楼的成本降由他们访问的市政府和郑祺蓉为推进牌楼项目成立的一个非营利组织分摊。

In China, in May 2014, Mr. Adams signed two sister city agreements and visited schools. But he also met with Harry Lu, who was chairman of the nonprofit group, the America Changle Association NY, whose offices would later house the illegal Chinese police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

2014年5月，亚当斯在中国与两个城区签署了姐妹关系协议，并参观了当地的学校。但亚当斯也与非营利组织、设在纽约的美国长乐公会会长卢建旺见面，该组织的办公室后来成了曼哈顿唐人街的非法中国警务站所在地。

2014年与郑祺蓉一起访问中国时，亚当斯会见了一位名叫卢建旺的纽约非营利组织经营者。联邦检察官说，去年，卢建旺在曼哈顿设立了一个中国政府海外警务站，监视和恐吓中国的持不同政见者。

Mr. Lu was also part of a delegation, led by Ms. Greco, that visited the newsroom of The Fujian Daily in China. The outlet falls under the Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus, and in 2016 it was reported to have given her a consulting job for its U.S.-based affiliate.

卢建旺也是郑祺蓉率领的另一个代表团的成员，他们一起访问了福建日报社。据报道，这家媒体隶属于中共宣传机构的媒体曾在2016年为郑祺蓉提供了其东南网美国站顾问的工作。

All told, Mr. Adams took at least six trips to China as an elected official, according to news reports, though it’s not clear if Ms. Greco accompanied him on all of them.

据媒体报道，亚当斯以民选官员的身份至少六次访问中国，但目前尚不清楚郑祺蓉是否每次都陪同前往。

During a trip in 2017, Mr. Adams handed the Chinese government a propaganda victory by praising its Belt and Road Initiative, according to a Chinese language news account. The initiative, a global infrastructure and development strategy, was designed to strengthen China’s international reach, but American officials have called it coercive diplomacy that will saddle developing nations with debt.

据一家中文媒体报道，在2017年的一次访问中，亚当斯赞扬了中国的“一带一路”倡议，为中国政府送去一个宣传胜利。“一带一路”倡议是中国在全球投资发展基础设施的战略，旨在加强中国的国际影响力，但美国官员称其为胁迫外交，让发展中国家背上巨额债务。

这些年里，郑祺蓉逐渐成为亚当斯在市政厅最信任和最忠诚的助手之一。

In 2018, Mr. Adams and Ms. Greco signaled that they would at least have something to show for all their foreign travels when they signed an agreement to accept Beijing’s gift, a 40-foot “Friendship Archway” to be built in China and installed by New Yorkers in Sunset Park. But two years later, this project, too, fell apart. In 2022, a few months after Mr. Adams was elected mayor, the Internal Revenue Service revoked the tax-exempt charter of the nonprofit Ms. Greco had created for the archway project for failure to file required paperwork.

2018年，亚当斯和郑祺蓉表示，他们多次访华至少有了一些收获，他们将签署一项接受中国政府向布鲁克林赠送“友谊牌楼”的协议，这座12米高的牌楼将在中国建造，然后由纽约人将其安装在日落公园。但两年后，这个项目也落空了。亚当斯2022年当选市长几个月后，美国国税局撤销了郑祺蓉为牌楼项目成立的非营利组织的免税特许，原因是该组织未提交所需的文件。

Chinese American businessmen who donated to the nonprofit have complained that their money was wasted. But Robin Mui, the chief executive of the Sing Tao U.S. newspaper — who traveled to China with Mr. Adams and Ms. Greco in 2014 — is now in charge of trying to reactivate the nonprofit. He said that of the $200,000 or so raised since its inception, about a quarter remains in an escrow account. He said once he gets I.R.S. approval to reopen it, he will open the books for public inspection and “every penny will be accounted for.”

曾为中美纽约布鲁克林牌楼协会捐款的美籍华裔商人抱怨说，他们的钱被浪费了。但担任牌楼协会代理主席的《星岛日报》全美行政总裁梅建国表示，将试图重启该非营利组织，梅建国曾2014年与亚当斯和郑祺蓉一起前往中国。他说，自牌楼协会成立以来已筹集到20万美元左右的资金，其中的约四分之一仍在托管账户中。他说，一旦获得国税局批准重启运行的通知，他将公开账簿供公众查阅，“每分钱都有记录”。

“I guarantee you that no one pocketed any money,” he said.

“我向大家保证，没有人把钱装进自己的腰包，”他说。

The parent company of Mr. Mui’s organization, Sing Tao News Corporation, publishes a pro-Beijing newspaper from Hong Kong. In 2021, Mr. Mui registered Sing Tao U.S. with the United States Justice Department as a foreign agent acting on behalf of the parent company.

梅建国工作单位的母公司星岛新闻集团在香港出版了一份亲北京的报纸。梅建国已在2021年向美国司法部注册，将星岛美国登记为代表母公司的外国代理人。

Mr. Adams’s successor as borough president, Antonio Reynoso, said he was wary of any efforts by the Chinese government to influence him. He has worked on a rebranded archway project that will honor Brooklyn’s Chinese diaspora without Ms. Greco’s “convoluted system” of public and private funding.

继任亚当斯布鲁克林区长职务的是安东尼奥·雷诺索表示，他对中国政府施加影响的努力保持着警惕。他已为重塑牌楼项目形象展开工作，将其变成一个向布鲁克林华人侨民致敬的项目，不需要郑祺蓉为使用公共和私人资金搞的那个“错综复杂的系统”。

“I don’t know why we need Chinese investors,” he said.

“我不知道我们为什么需要中国的资金，”他说。

A knack for fund-raising

筹款的本领

The failure of the Sunset Park archway did not dampen Mr. Adams’s enthusiasm and support for Ms. Greco. Whatever her failings in the arena of U.S.-China exchanges and business deals, Ms. Greco knew how to raise money.

日落公园牌楼项目的失败并没有削弱亚当斯对郑祺蓉的热心和支持。不管郑祺蓉在中美交流和商业交易上怎么失败，她都知道如何筹集资金。

Her uncanny ability to deliver small-dollar campaign donors from New York’s vast Chinese American community helped Mr. Adams unlock hundreds of thousands of dollars in matching taxpayer funds under a generous program designed to reduce the influence of money in politics — one that gives candidates $8 in public money for every dollar raised, up to the first $250 per donor.

她有从纽约庞大的华人社区筹集小额竞选捐款的超凡能力，曾帮助亚当斯拿到了数十万美元的公共资金配捐。纽约市有一个用纳税人的钱设立的、旨在减少金钱对政治影响的慷慨项目——候选人每募集到一美元，就能获得八美元的公共资金配捐，每位捐款人的最高限额为250美元。

In April 2018, she began tapping into her vast network of Asian American organizations to bring in donors who would open the spigot for Mr. Adams.

2018年4月，郑祺蓉开始利用自己庞大的亚裔美国人团体网络，为亚当斯寻找能为他打开公共资金水龙头的捐款者。

She organized the first major fund-raiser of his mayoral campaign at Royal Queen, a restaurant in Flushing’s New World Mall, where 500 attendees dined on lobster and shrimp. Campaign records show that Mr. Adams received at least $64,000 from donors with Chinese surnames that day, unlocking about $100,000 in taxpayer money through the matching funds program.

她第一次为亚当斯的市长竞选举办大型筹款活动是在法拉盛新世界购物中心的君豪大酒楼，有500人参加了活动，他们吃了龙虾、大虾等佳肴。竞选记录显示，亚当斯那天从有华人姓氏的捐款者那里筹集了至少6.4万美元，通过公共配套资金项目获得了约10万美元的纳税人资金。

Ms. Greco put together at least five other fund-raisers with a clear strategy: Maximize matching funds by seeking small contributions. Before Mr. Adams was elected mayor, she raised another $96,000, netting him more than $405,000 in matching funds.

郑祺蓉组织了至少另外五次策略非常明确的筹款活动：通过寻求小额捐款将公共资金配捐最大化。亚当斯当选市长之前，郑祺蓉又筹集到了9.6万美元，给亚当斯带来了逾40.5万美元的配捐资金。

郑祺蓉多次利用法拉盛的新世界购物中心为亚当斯筹款，她还在那里设有办公室。联邦调查局在搜查郑祺蓉住所的同一天突袭了该办公室。

Ms. Greco also requested dozens of meetings with Mr. Adams on behalf of Chinese businessmen and government officials, including the Chinese consulate general, according to Brooklyn borough president’s office records.

据布鲁克林区长办公室的记录，郑祺蓉还代表中国商人和政府官员（包括中国驻纽约总领事馆的官员），向亚当斯提出了十余次会面请求。

Some of those businessmen later hosted fund-raisers for Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign. A real estate developer whom Ms. Greco connected with Mr. Adams held an event in August 2021 that raised $32,686 in private funds and brought in $93,600 in taxpayer money.

其中一些商人后来为亚当斯2021年的竞选举办了筹款活动。郑祺蓉介绍给亚当斯的一名房地产开发商曾在2021年8月举办了一场活动，从私人捐款者那里筹集到了32686美元，带来了93600美元的纳税人资金。

After the election, Ms. Greco immediately turned her fund-raising prowess to Mr. Adams’s inauguration. She helped haul in another $400,000 for his transition and inauguration account — almost half of all the money he raised for it — through an entity called the Alliance of Asian American Friends, multiple Chinese-language newspapers reported. The group, a coalition of Asian associations whose president has been described in the news as the “head of Adams’s Flushing campaign,” features Mr. Adams in several photos on its website.

选举结束后，郑祺蓉立即将自己的筹款能力用在了亚当斯的就职典礼上。据多家中文报纸报道，她通过一个名为“亚裔之友总联盟”的实体，为亚当斯的过渡和就职账户又筹集了40万美元——几乎是他为此筹集的全部资金的一半。该组织是一个由亚裔协会组成的联盟，其主席在新闻中被称为“亚当斯在法拉盛竞选活动的负责人”，该组织网站上有多张亚当斯的照片。

Almost a dozen of these events were held at the same Flushing New World Mall, a busy intersection of Chinese culture and politics and a source of donations from low-level employees who boosted Mr. Adams’s campaign account by more than $200,000, most of it in matching funds. Many of these turned out to be straw donations — meaning the listed donors illegally used someone else’s money to unlock matching funds, according to the nonprofit news organizations The City and Documented.

其中近12场活动都在法拉盛新世界购物中心举行，这里是中国文化和政治的繁忙交汇点，也是基层员工募捐的来源，他们为亚当斯的竞选账户筹集了20多万美元，其中大部分是配捐资金。根据非营利性新闻机构城市与记录的报道，其中许多被证明是“稻草捐款”——即名单上的捐款人非法使用他人的钱以获取纳税人资金。

The mall, where Ms. Greco kept an office with two campaign volunteers, was raided by the F.B.I. on the same February day that agents searched her Bronx homes.

郑祺蓉和两名竞选志愿者在这家购物中心有一间办公室。今年2月，就在联邦调查局搜查她在布朗克斯的住所的同一天，该办公室也遭到了突击搜查。

郑祺蓉的律师指出，联邦调查局搜查她家已经过去几个月了，仍没有对她提出任何指控。

Once Mr. Adams was in office, Ms. Greco, by then a paid city employee, kept fund-raising for his 2025 re-election campaign, prompting questions over whether she was using her position in city government to help donors.

亚当斯上任后，郑祺蓉（当时已成为受薪市政府雇员）一直在为亚当斯2025年的连任竞选筹款，这引发了人们的质疑——她是否利用自己在市政府的职位帮助捐赠者。 

One donor who attended a major fund-raiser for Mr. Adams with Ms. Greco was soon after able to wrest control of a contract to run the East Broadway Mall in Lower Manhattan from another businessman, Terry Chan, whose family had operated it since 1988, The City reported.

据《纽约时报》报道，一位与郑祺蓉一起参加亚当斯大型筹款活动的捐赠者，很快就从另一位商人特里·陈（音）手中夺取了曼哈顿下城东百老汇购物中心的经营合同。特里·陈的家族从1988年开始经营这家购物中心。

“We lost our bid quite quickly after the fund-raiser,” Mr. Chan said in an interview. “We didn’t have a chance.”

“筹款活动结束后，我们很快就投标失败了，”特里·陈在接受采访时说。“我们没有胜算。”

Once installed in City Hall as Mr. Adams’s director of Asian affairs, Ms. Greco saw her portfolio and annual salary expand — to $196,000 from $100,000. From that post, she exercised broad authority as one of only about 100 “policymakers” in the mayor’s office, acting as a liaison to Chinese American power players, records show.

郑祺蓉进入市政府担任亚当斯的亚裔事务主管后，职权随之扩大，年薪也从10万美元涨到了19.6万美元。记录显示，在这个职位上，她作为市长办公室仅有的约100名“决策者”之一，行使着广泛的权力，充当与美国华裔权势人物的联络人。

At Mr. Adams’s victory party on election night, she was by his side onstage, and was one of a handful of friends with him the night he was sworn in in Times Square. Ms. Greco is also close with Mr. Adams’s son, Jordan Coleman, and the mayor’s longtime aide Ingrid Lewis-Martin, who has called Ms. Greco “my sister.”

选举之夜，在亚当斯的庆功宴上，她就站在他身旁。亚当斯在时报广场宣誓就职的当晚，她也是他身边的少数几个朋友之一。郑祺蓉还与亚当斯的儿子乔丹·科尔曼以及市长的长期助手英格丽德·刘易斯-马丁关系密切，后者称郑祺蓉为“我的姐妹”。

A party at Gracie Mansion

格雷西大厦的派对

Then the federal searches of Ms. Greco’s homes happened, and she disappeared from public view.

后来，联邦政府开始搜查郑祺蓉的住所，她从公众视野中消失了。

Months passed before she finally re-emerged, at a high-profile political event on Sept. 12 — a celebration of the annual Mid-Autumn festival the mayor hosted at Gracie Mansion. It was a hot ticket for connected members of New York City’s Chinese community on the eve of another city election year.

几个月过去了，她终于在9月12日的一个备受瞩目的政治活动中重新露面——市长在格雷西大厦举办的一年一度的中秋节庆祝活动。这是纽约市华人社区相关人士在又一个市政选举年前夕的热门活动。

The event, however, was unusually subdued. The mayor, who was sick with Covid, did not attend. And though Ms. Greco had spoken at the previous two holiday events, she spent most of the evening at this one backstage — ushering around performers and speakers while occasionally stepping out to greet guests and take photographs.

然而，这次活动却异常低调。感染新冠的市长没有出席。尽管郑祺蓉在前两年的节日活动上都做过演讲，但这次她大部分时间都在后台——引导表演者和演讲者，偶尔走出来问候来宾并拍照。

在亚当斯2021年竞选市长时，郑祺蓉帮助他筹集了数十万美元。但在其住所被搜查后，她基本上退出了公众视野。

When The Times asked Ms. Greco about her involvement in the tangle of federal investigations surrounding Mr. Adams, she did not appear to be in the mood to talk about it.

当时报询问郑祺蓉是否参与了围绕亚当斯展开的错综复杂的联邦调查时，她似乎没有心情谈论这件事。

“No, no, no!” she said. “Thank you.”

“不，不，不！”她说。“谢谢你。”

Then she slipped back behind the curtain.

然后她溜回了帷幕后面。