By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Rep. Charles Rangel will ask for one final opportunity to plead his case before the House votes on whether to punish him for ethical violations, the Associated Press reported Sunday.
The House Ethics committee found Rangel guilty of 11 of 13 alleged ethical violations earlier this month, recommending censure for the 80-year-old Harlem congressman.
While Rangel has apologized to his constituents for the embarrassment he caused them, he has denied that he ever intentionally broke the law.
Now, Rangel hopes to convince the U.S. House of Representatives to ignore the ethics committee’s recommendation and downgrade his punishment from censure to reprimand, according to the AP. He will ask Ethics Committee Chairman Rep. Zoe Lofgren for time to speak on the floor of the House when congress resumes on Monday, the wire service said.
"Censures are historically handed out when there is financial gain or gross impropriety," Assemblyman Keith Wright said at a rally in support of Rangel last week. "Frankly, we don't have either."
House Ethics Committee Chief Counsel Blake Chisam, who served as a kind of prosecutor during Rangel’s hearing before the committee, agreed that Rangel’s actions did not constitute corruption.
"I see no evidence of corruption," Chisam said during the public hearing. "I believe that the Congressman, quite frankly, was overzealous in many of the things that he did" and was "sloppy in his personal finances."
Rangel was found guilty of having improperly used official resources to solicit donations for a City College center named in his honor and failure to pay taxes on rental revenue from a home he owned in the Dominican Republic, among other charges. He has since paid the taxes — $10,422 to the IRS and $4,501 to the state of New York — according to the AP.
The practical ramifications of a censure are not so different from those of reprimand, the news service added. The former requires that the violator be present during a reading of the resolution against him, while a reprimand is simply a vote of disapproval, according to the AP.
