Former City Council member Erik Dilan was fined $9,000 for violating the Conflict of Interests Law. Image Credit: Office of State Assemblyman Erik Dilan
Erik Dilan illegally received financial benefits from developer who had business before the Council. On January 22, 2015, the Conflict of Interests Board levied a $9,000 fine on former City Council member Erik Dilan for violations of the City Conflict of Interests Law. Mr. Dilan, now the State Assemblyman for the 54th District, was at the time the Council member of the 37th District representing Cypress Hills, Bushwick, City Line, Oceanhill-Brownsville, and East New York. While in the Council, Mr. Dilan chaired the Housing and Buildings Committee.
According to the Board’s disposition, from 2003 to 2008 Mr. Dilan rented a one-bedroom apartment owned by a developer, Sergio Benitez. During the time Mr. Dilan was a tenant, he voted favorably on three UDAAP designation requests made by Mr. Benitez, without disclosing the association between himself and Mr. Benitez. In 2008, Mr. Dilan approached Mr. Benitez about moving his family to a larger apartment. The apartment Mr. Benitez rented to Mr. Dilan was in a newly-remodeled building that benefited from one of the UDAAP designations Mr. Dilan voted for, and was designated for tenants making no more than 165 percent of AMI. At the time 165 percent of AMI was $114,000, however Mr. Benitez rented the apartment to Mr. Dilan and his wife even though their annual income was over $170,000.
In the disposition, Mr. Dilan states “I acknowledge that, by voting at the City Council on resolutions benefiting my associate without disclosing that association and by soliciting and accepting an apartment in an income-restricted building for which I did not meet the restrictions from a developer with matters regularly before the City Council, I violated the City’s conflicts of interest law…”
Dilan, COIB Case No. 2011-201 (Jan. 22, 2015).
By: Michael Twomey (Michael is the CityLaw Fellow and a New York Law School graduate, Class of 2014).