The Case Against Assemblymember Erik Dilan
A Hard Look at His Record Might Inspire Someone to Primary Him
For the people of Assembly District 54, the option to re-elect Erik Dilan to the Assembly, in the Primary this June of 2026, is an opportunity to look carefully at his record. If we do, we will choose instead to create something bold and new.
Assemblymember Erik Dilan is at risk because voters know him, not because they don't. His longstanding position in city politics has come to symbolize the very things that demoralize and irritate working-class voters: nepotism, landlord favoritism, backroom deals, and machine politics. Dilan was nearly defeated in the 2022 primary, but he squeaked by with a couple hundred votes. In 2026, people are prepared for change.
Erik Dilan doesn’t have affordable housing ideas, he has an affordable housing scandal. Just as he was being inaugurated into the State Assembly, 10 years ago, New York City found him guilty of corruption from his years on the City Council. He was hit with a $9,000 fine for grabbing an affordable apartment for which he didn’t qualify, from a crooked developer friend, and campaign donor, Sergio Benitez:
Dilan illegally gave tax breaks to this developer, Benitez, who was also his landlord. Dilan voted in his favor three times, without telling the City Council about the conflict of interest. Dilan helped himself and picked out a nice large affordable apartment, which was supposed to go to people of lesser income.
Dilan’s “longtime pal” Sergio Benitez, was convicted related to the trial of corrupt HPD bigwig Wendell Walters, who took $2.5 MM in bribes and kickbacks when he was supposed to be building affordable housing.
Walters, a former college basketball star, became an informant for FBI to bust other corrupt parts of the affordable housing program inside Bloomberg’s HPD. Such as….
…Dilan’s developer buddy, Sergio Benitez, who in 2013, got a 22 month Federal sentence for taking kick-backs and skimming 2% from his contractors, when he was supposed to be building affordable housing. Today, Benitez is back in business, the CEO at his company Direct Building Management, operates at 1205 Myrtle Ave, right here in Bushwick.
Erik Dilan is in the top five of NY Assemblymembers who get the most campaign funding from the real estate lobby. So when sensible legislation is proposed, like the Good Cause Eviction bill, which would prevent arbitrary evictions of tenants, Dilan never even listened to the supporters. Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All, complains that she begged for four years, just to meet with Dilan to talk about the Good Cause Eviction bill. Dilan never responded.
Dilan and the real estate lobby play dirty. They used fear-mongering, homophobia, and character assassination to take down Dilan’s 2022 opponent, Samy Nemir Olivares.
Samy almost beat Dilan, and remains one of his fiercest critics. After losing the Primary, Samy didn’t quit, they wrote some great reports about Dilan’s capture and control by the real estate lobby. In Samy’s piece for the Bushwick Daily, we learn that Bushwick has the highest incidence of childhood lead poisoning in the city. Yet Dilan blocked lead abatement legislation for years while receiving thousands of dollars from landlords.
Other local activists agree: Dilan is just never around. Dilan has been absent from the meetings of Community Board 4 (Bushwick) and 5 (Cypress Hills, East New York) and the Community Education Councils. During the pandemic, Dilan didn’t lead a single food distribution. He is not active on social media, and does not hold Town Hall meetings.
I have been active with other citizen activists protesting the use of our local public park by a private rich donor sports association, the dangerous sport of “disc golf” which somehow got super-imposed on the pedestrian side of our beautiful Highland Park. Dilan had no idea about this new use of the park, or the Disc Golf controversy. In person, he wasn’t all that concerned about it, I asked him in February 2025, in person. I followed up with his office and never heard back.
My wife Sophie wrote this great article about this controversy and then people tried to get her fired from her job, so it seems like there is some big money behind the Disc Golf sport.
The City website noted that Dilan has been in the Assembly since 2015, in ten years, he hasn’t done a lot. One website notes he passed legislation that protects home-owners from tax liens. That’s not a great record to run on, when about 80% of your voters are renters, not owners.
But things are changing. Let’s look at how people are voting here, today. The last time he was challenged, Dilan won, but barely, with 52% of the vote to 48% for Samy Olivares. It was a margin of only 211 votes.
The District has since become much more progressive, or perhaps desperate for authentic fighters for the people. In the 2025 Mayoral Primary, Zohran Mamdani won 64% of this District, while Andrew Cuomo only got 27%.
That means from 2,313 progressive votes for Samy, to 6,859 for Mamdani the progressive base in AD54 is expanding fast. It tripled in three years.
Our research shows that a progressive challenger would only need about 2800 votes to win the primary. We need a candidate who is bold, energetic, creative, willing to stand up to the mudslinging and character assasination that will come from the real estate fat cats who back Dilan.
Who will that candidate be?
Who is willing to do it?
To inspire the community to think about this, let me point out that just last Summer, I was a part of a victorious campaign. Claire Valdez for NY State Assembly defeated an incumbent in a landslide. It was time for him to go, and the people knew it.
Five years earlier, in 2020, I was a part of the Marcela Mitaynes Campaign for State Assembly, where we the voters ejected a long time career politician incumbent. It was time for him to go, and the people knew it. We need a candidate like that, here, and now.
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