The case against Charlie Rangel

On April 9, 1965, a 34-year-old lawyer named Charles Rangeltook out a low-interest mortgage to renovate his childhood home — a rowhouse on West 132nd Street that he had just inherited from hisgrandfather.

The $39,350 loan came from a New York City program to developlow-income housing. Rangel and his sister Frances were to use the moneyto turn the family home in Central Harlem, which Rangel affectionatelycalled Buckingham Palace, into six apartments.

While Rangel mayhave thought he scored a sweetheart deal, the loan came back to haunthim during his first run for Congress in 1970. An opponent in theDemocratic primary accused him of violating the conditions of themortgage because he was living in one of the apartments that weresupposed to be rented only to poor people,

AP

Charlie Rangel

“If Charlie Rangel is low income, then we have a new crisis in this country,” Jesse Gray, a longtime housing activist, charged.

Rangel brushed aside the accusations, and went on to defeat both Gray and Adam Clayton Powell, who had held the Harlem congressional seat since 1944.

Buteven as he celebrated his victory, the loan dogged the young, ambitiouspolitician. City and federal investigators launched a probe into thedealings of the $135 million Municipal Loan Program, which was set upto give loans to building owners who couldn’t otherwise get funding torehabilitate their properties. The Post, in a front-page story in July1971, fingered the newly minted Congressman and another electedofficial in the scandal.

Rangel denounced the accusations byattacking the “yellow journalism” of The Post and said that he didn’tsee anything wrong with living in a Harlem apartment renovated withmoney reserved for poor people. He also said he was not a publicofficial when he received the 1965 loan.

“The New York Posthas the power to destroy,” said Rangel at a 1971 press conference inhis Harlem office. “I received a loan to rehabilitate a building Ilived in all my life, to rebuild my homestead where five low-incomefamilies now live.”

But even people who should have been his political allies were upset.

“Iam shocked that Congressman Rangel, who has a Congressional budget ofmore than $200,000 a year, has used thousands of dollars of New YorkCity money to feather his own nest when welfare recipients are beingthrown out into the streets or being forced to live in squalid hotels,”said Leonard de Champs, chairman of Harlem’s Congress of RacialEquality, a civil rights group.

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So it would go forCharlie Rangel over the next four decades — a pattern of tax evasion,special treatment and enrichment that seemed to increase with his powerand prestige in Congress. Whether it’s living in rent-stabilizedapartments while making a hefty salary, or failing to disclose hundredsof thousands of dollars in earnings and assets, his actions betray aconsistent, defiant sense of entitlement. And when he is caught, thepowerful Democrat blames a right-wing conspiracy.