Metro

Restaurant loan $tinks

Something is fishy with this loan.

A senior loan officer at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit tied to US Rep. Charles Rangel, processed a loan for a Harlem businessman to open a fish-and-chips restaurant, even though the businessman was his landlord.

The loan officer, Ellingston Clark, did not disclose the relationship with Jonathan Hatcher in apparent violation of the nonprofit’s conflict-of-interest policy, the Post has learned.

UMEZ lawyer Blair Duncan, after checking the files on the $150,000 loan, said he could find no disclosure of the relationship.

“We’ll have to investigate the time frame, of course, and if there is any relationship,” Duncan said.

Public records show Clark moved from Brooklyn into a Harlem brownstone owned by Hatcher in October 2007. In January, he moved into another building owned by Hatcher and still lives there.

In February 2008, Hatcher received the loan from UMEZ to open a restaurant called Fishers of Men II.