Businessman George Chopivsky, who is trying to buy the United Medical Center in Southeast, recently paid the woman reported to be Mayor Vince Gray‘s girlfriend $37,500 for lobbying help, according to the Office of Campaign Finance, which tracks lobbying disclosure forms.

Linda Greene, whom City Paper reporters harassed for years when she was working as Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry‘s chief of staff, was listed by the Washington Post‘s gossip column as Gray’s new girlfriend in late December.

OCF says Greene lobbied Gray, several other councilmembers, and former Attorney General Peter Nickles on Chopivsky’s behalf last summer—presumably before she and the mayor started dating.

Officially, Greene was working for Anacostia Healthcare, the group put together by Chopivsky to try and buy the long-troubled UMC. Greene tells LL part of her job was introduce Chopivsky to important people east of the river, where UMC is the only hospital.

Greene declined to address the Post‘s report that she and Gray were dating, saying only that they are longtime friends. Gray’s spokeswoman, Linda Wharton-Boyd, says she can’t help, either: “Personally, I cannot confirm” whether Greene and Gray are dating.

Normally, it’s none of LL’s business who Gray is dating. But when money, influence and politics are involved, as they certainly are in any prospective sale of UMC, LL thought the public ought to know. And now you do.