Ethics panel: Landlord gave Rangel ‘special’ treatment over others

Rep. Charlie Rangel’s (D-N.Y.) landlord gave him special
treatment as it looked to evict other tenants of a Harlem apartment complex,
according to a House ethics committee.

Documents released by the ethics investigative panel that
concluded Rangel broke House rules state the Olnick Organization, a property
developer in New York City that owned the Lenox Terrace complex, knew Rangel was
using a rent-controlled apartment for a campaign office, but did nothing about
it.

{mosads}The committee also charges that Rangel was included by
Olnick on a “special handling list” that identified him as a member of
Congress.

Rangel says he never asked and didn’t receive any favors
and didn’t know he was on the special handling list, according to his 32-page
response to the ethics panel.

The response said the list was created to identify prominent
tenants to staff. Besides Rangel, New York Gov. David Paterson has an apartment
in the huge complex, which stretches across several blocks.

“The list was to let them know ‘Don’t piss them off,’”
according to Rangel’s statement.

Tenants pursued by Orlick, Rangel said, generally were those
with illegal sublets who were trying to profit from their rent-controlled
apartments. 

Rangel used all four of his apartments for his own purposes,
and always paid his rent, his defense notes.

The ethics panel argues that Olnick in 2004 increased the
number of legal actions it brought against tenants on primary residency,
including those who improperly sublet their rent-stabilized apartments.

But Olnick took no action against Rangel, even though the
panel said he appears to be the only tenant using a rent-controlled apartment
as something other than a primary residence.

Rangel argues Olnick always knew he was using the apartment
as an office and didn’t care as long as he continued to pay the maximum
allowable rent.

Actions against those subletting apartments were taken
because Olnick was worried about tenants charging higher rents and pocketing
the difference, Rangel states. His campaign office apartment was not an illegal
sublet, and the fact that his landlord did not renew the leases of some tenants
did not prove it renewed his lease because he was a member of Congress,
his submission to the panel states.

A person who answered the phone at the Olnick Organization
on Thursday told The Hill that the group was not handling media calls and hung
up.

Rangel’s four rent-controlled apartments at the complex have
been a highlight of his ethics case  since The New York Times first
published a story in July 2008. In addition to the 10^th floor unit
that is his campaign office, Rangel has turned three units into one apartment
on the 16^th floor of the complex.

Rent-stabilized units are prized in New York City, which
boasts some of the most expensive real estate in the world. The price stability
is intended to protect low- and middle-income people from being pushed out of
their neighborhoods, and it is generally difficult for someone to obtain one
rent-controlled unit, let alone four. Property managers generally want to
reduce the number of rent-controlled units in order to charge higher rates set
by the open market.

Rangel faces 13 different counts of violating House rules or
federal statutes, including improperly using one of his rent-controlled
apartments as a campaign office. His ethics trial is scheduled for
mid-September.

The documents released by the ethics subcommittee and
Rangel’s response shed new light on the fight.

In its charges against Rangel, the panel paints a picture of
a congressman who won advantages from having a rent-controlled office, and
suggests Olnick looked the other way because of Rangel’s status as a New York
political powerhouse and senior Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means
Committee.

Rangel has lived at the Lenox Terrace since 1989, before the
real estate boom in upper Manhattan, and his defense notes that the unit that
became the Rangel for Congress office lacked air-conditioning, was un-renovated
and had been vacant for months before he and his wife moved in.

When he began leasing the unit that became his primary
campaign office in 1996, the Lenox Terrace complex had a 20 percent vacancy
race and cash-flow problems, Rangel states. Ability to pay was the only
condition of living there.

According to the panel, Rangel’s constituents complained to
his office about Olnick’s actions and contemplated a strike. The documents say
Rangel’s office, including District Director James Capel, worked with Lenox
Terrace management to resolve the issues. At one point, Capel met with a Lenox
Terrace official about a possible strike that was under consideration by Lenox
Terrace residents, the panel said.

Rangel asserts that the panel is trying to hint that he
looked to help Lenox with its problems with tenants. He said his district
director only worked with Lenox with one tenant, who Capel declined to help
because the tenant clearly had an illegal sublet.

The ethics panel stated that Rangel signed an application
that indicated his son Steven would occupy the unit that became his campaign
office. Steven Rangel never lived in the rent-stabilized apartment, despite language
in the lease that said it was to be used for “living purposes only,” according
to the ethics panel.

Rangel argues his son considered renting as a studio one of
Rangel’s apartments on the third floor, and that an application to do so was
mislabeled as the campaign office apartment. He said he did not misrepresent
the application and repeatedly contended Olnick always knew the 10^th
floor apartment was a campaign office.