Chutzpah: Rangel Retains Rent Stabilized Apartments

Even after admitting that he was not supposed to use one of the four rent stabilized apartments as an office, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) continues to use the space and will do so until the end of October. He's moving into another space in Harlem and he claims that the other office space needed to be completed first:

For the past decade, Rangel's political operation has been headquartered in a $682-a-month, one-bedroom apartment at Lenox Terrace - the same Harlem building where he has three other rent-stabilized apartments for personal use.

And even with the furor over his sweet rental deals continuing, Rangel doesn't plan to move his operations to a $4,000-a-month renovated brownstone at 193 Lenox Ave. until mid-October, according to his lawyer, Josh Galper.

The lease on the current apartment at 40 W. 135th St. expires Oct. 31.

On July 14, Rangel said he'd vacate the office, amid revelations about his cluster of rent-stabilized apartments.

"He was disingenuous at the least. That was deceptive. Moving doesn't mean when the lease is up," said Melanie Sloan, director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

But Rangel's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said, "The campaign identified a new office in a newly restored brownstone in Harlem within three weeks of Mr. Rangel's announcement that he was leaving the Lenox Terrace space.

No word on how many thousands more in back taxes are owed from his other shady tax returns, including the failure to report sales of homes, rental income, and imputed income from his use of a Congressional parking lot.

He's also been using a taxpayer-provided ride for campaign purposes.

He knows that the House ethics investigation will not result in anything more than a slap on the wrist, so he's continuing to act as though there's nothing wrong and that he's doing what he has always done. No one is going to disabuse him of that notion, not even his constituents who will likely vote him back into Congress by an overwhelming majority.