Brooklyn Pol Harris: Poor health, post-storm woes drove me to bankruptcy
Coney Island Assemblymember Blames Deep Debt on Cancer Battles, Superstorm Sandy
Brooklyn Assemblymember Pamela Harris responded Tuesday to published reports that she and her husband owed more than $30,000 in back taxes, explaining that a series of illnesses and the ravages of Superstorm Sandy on their home left them all but penniless.
In an “open letter to the media and my neighbors,” Harris (D-Coney Island) fired back at the “hurtful insinuations” in the New York Daily News, which reported Monday that the assemblymember and her husband Leon filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2013 and owed money to “at least 15 creditors.”
“It seems the time has come to bare all in hopes of clearing the air surrounding my personal financial dealings,” Harris, 55, who won a special election to the District 46 seat last November, said in the opening paragraph of her letter.