Metro

Empathy and $$ for Rangel

Anthony Weiner handed over a wad of money to disgraced Rep. Charles Rangel for his legal-defense fund.

Weiner, who now has problems of his own, was the only New York Democratic colleague to dig into his pockets for Rangel, giving him $2,000 from Weiner’s campaign coffers.

The Charles B. Rangel Legal Expense Trust took in $116,875 from Jan. 1 through March 31, according to its just-filed disclosures.

Rangel set up the fund in December after a brutal censure by his House colleagues and mounting legal bills following a lengthy investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

The legal fund took in just $34,000 in December but its bank account swelled after a February fund-raiser at Harlem restaurant Settepani.

Rosamond Isenberg, who gave $5,000, was among the heavy hitters making donations. Isen berg’s husband, Eugene, helped land Rangel in hot water with the Ethics Commit tee over a $1 million pledge to the Rangel Center at City College.

Rangel, who had been chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, helped preserve a tax loophole that benefited companies like Isenberg’s oil-drilling concern, Nabors Industries.

The legal fund spent most of its cash — $41,169 — on hiring fund-raising consultants Harlem Strategies. The firm is run by Rangel’s former campaign director, Walter Swett. Just $15,014 went to pay legal fees.