Rep. Charlie Rangel yesterday came roaring to the defense of a financially troubled nonprofit that won millions in federal grant money with his help.
“Anyone who wants to challenge the integrity of Alianza Dominicana, talk to the people that have been the beneficiaries of it,” Rangel said during a pre-Dominican Day Parade breakfast at the Mamajuana Cafe on Dyckman Street.
The Post yesterday reported that the Washington Heights-based charity, which owes $258,000 to its employees, will collect $2.6 million from another Rangel-allied nonprofit, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone.
One executive of that group resigned rather than sign off on the June 29 grant.
Rangel, who has been charged with several ethics violations by a congressional committee, strongly backed Alianza, and The Post report appeared to strike a nerve.
“For The Post to try for political reasons to attack this organization, once again they’re picking on a giant without any facts at all,” he added
The six-member board of the umbrella New York Empowerment Zone, which includes Rangel, oversees the upper-Manhattan group and approved the grant.
All three nonprofits operate with public funds.
Alianza’s $150,000- a-year CEO, Moises Perez, sought the funds to help pay for its new $19 million Washington Heights headquarters.
The nonprofit, which runs a variety of programs including day care and domestic-violence prevention, received a separate $2.7 million loan from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone in 2008.
Perez is banking that rent from commercial tenants in its new six-story headquarters will help pay back the loans, but the zone’s finance executive was dubious because of Alianza’s other money woes.
In addition to its debt to its workers, it’s been threatened with eviction from the its old offices for not paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent.
Over the years, Alianza found itself owing the IRS, building suppliers and the state Insurance Fund. It also racked up a $914,671 accounting bill in 2009 alone.
Rangel didn’t dispute the troubles facing Alianza.
“If you want to say that it’s a great organization . . . but they have problems, that is what you call balance. But if you just want to attack it for problems that they have, it’s just so totally unfair,” he said.
Records show he also sent Alianza a direct earmark of $250,000 on Dec. 8, 2009, which was a month after Perez praised him on the steps of City Hall.
Yesterday, Rangel hailed the city’s Dominican community.
“Instead of just reading history, the Dominican community has made history,” he said.