Former Council member fined for ties to Brooklyn developer

Erik Dilan to pay $9K for renting apartment from landlord while voting for his projects

From left: Erik Dilan and a Benitez project at 87 Himrod in Bushwick
From left: Erik Dilan and a Benitez project at 87 Himrod in Bushwick

Former City Council member Erik Dilan agreed to pay a $9,000 fine for failing to disclose his financial ties to Sergio Benitez, a Brooklyn affordable housing developer who has business before the Council.

Dilan began renting an affordable housing unit from Benitez in 2003. The city’s Conflict of Interest Board launched an investigation eight years later. The board found that Dilan broke city conflicts of interest law when he voted to approve three of Benitez’s affordable housing projects.

Dilan then requested and received a larger apartment from Benitez, according to the board’s findings cited by the New York Daily News.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

“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 wrote in a settlement.

Benitez’s three affordable housing projects were sponsored by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. In 2013, Benitez was sentenced to 22 months in prison for accepting $200,000 in kickbacks from a contractor for a HPD-sponsored project. [NYDN]Mark Maurer