(
)
Council Ethics Committee Chairwoman Inez Dickens is siccing debt collectors on her low-income tenants, The Post has learned — despite the fact that she herself owes the city more than a quarter-million dollars in unpaid violations, taxes and fees on her four Harlem apartment buildings.
City Finance Department records show that Dickens, a contender to replace mayoral candidate Christine Quinn as City Council speaker, is deep in debt. She’s been hit with some 200 infractions for dangerous conditions in the buildings — left to her and her sister, Delores Richards, by their dad, the late state Assemblyman Lloyd Dickens, Department of Buildings records show.
In July, Dickens sent a letter to her tenants ordering them, ‘‘Don’t talk to the media,’’ according to a renter who says he received one.
Court records show she’s turned debt collectors loose on at least four tenants.
Dickens is scheduled to appear in Housing Court on Sept. 24 to boot David Nolan out of his apartment at 187 Lenox Ave. The 24-year-old tried to remain after his mother, Judge Sharon LeSang, died on Feb. 13, 2009.
In court papers, Nolan says he’s received Dickens’ political mailings for years. He has accused her of “fraud” for hiking his rent while he suffered years of mold and flooding from busted pipes.
A Dickens rep said the sisters are taking steps to fix their properties by hiring “an independent inspector” who’s making improvements, “some of which are under way and some of which are on the list to be addressed.”