Ex-mayor aide in health crisis

ALBANY — Mayor de Blasio’s former press secretary Karen Hinton suffered a head injury over the weekend and was in a medically induced coma, according to her niece.

“All Prayer Warriors, please believe with me and my family for my amazing Aunts healing,” Haden Hinton wrote in a Facebook post Sunday night that was subsequently taken down. “Yesterday she had an accident which caused severe trauma to her head. She has been through surgery and is stable but is still in an induced coma to help her heal.”

Hinton, 58 (photo inset), once served as acting assistant secretary for public affairs under Gov. Cuomo, when he was President Bill Clinton’s housing secretary. It was there that she met de Blasio.

After leaving the Housing and Urban Development Department, Hinton was president of Hinton Communications.

She joined de Blasio as his press secretary in June 2015 and left less than a year later to head the New York City office for Fenton Communications, saying she looked forward to representing a wide range of progressive causes.

Hinton’s husband, Howard Glaser, is Cuomo’s former director of state operations.

Glaser could not be reached for comment Sunday night.

Hinton’s relationship with Cuomo soured after she took the job with the mayor. There were also tensions within de Blasio’s office.

At one point, a de Blasio aide publicly rebuked her by saying her views did not reflect those of the administration after she criticized Cuomo during the Legionnaire’s disease outbreak in the city.

Despite that slap, Hinton has built a solid reputation as a candid, tough and friendly spokeswoman.

When De Blasio hired her, he praised her as having “dedicated her life’s work to addressing inequality.”

Hinton previously represented indigenous Ecuadorans who have waged a long legal fight against Chevron over contamination in the Amazon rain forest.