Ex-Housing Development Corp. czar indicted.

The former president of the New York City Housing Development Corporation, Russell A. Harding, was charged in an indictment unsealded last week with using hundreds of thousands of dollars of the agency's money for vacation travel, gifts and parties for friends and for other personal expenses.

The indictment, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, also charges that Harding directed others to shred documents and erase computer files to cover up his activities. His expense records had been requested by a reporter for The Village Voice. The indictment also charges. that Harding possessed child pornography received over the Internet.

Harding, the son of Raymond B. Harding, the long-time leader of the Liberal Party and a close ally of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, was a college dropout with no housing experience when Giullani appointed him to run the housing corporation in 1998.

In the indictment; Harding was accused of using public money for vacation trips to Hong Kong. Vancouver and San Diego, for himself and others. On a vacation to Las Vegas in 2000, the indictment charges, Harding used $6,200 in agency funds to pay for hotel rooms and entertainment like Siegfried and Roy, Cirque de Soleil and a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. In June 2001, he used $1,000 to hold a birthday patty for a friend at the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan, the indictment says. It also charges that he spent money on spa services, electronics equipment and presents for friends, including $38,664 on a vehicle for use by a friend, the indictment charges

The indictment charges that other people participated in the fraud but does not identify them. The Housing Development Corporation is a quasi-government agency created under state law to help subsidize construction of low- and middle-income housing.

In a brief court appearance, Harding entered a not guilty plea through his lawyer, Gerald L. Shargel. The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, released Harding on bond.

The prosecutors also charged that Harding approved unauthorized salary increases and bonuses for himself and reimbursed himself $8,597 for a penalty he incurred for making an early withdrawal from his retirement plan. Harding is also accused of trying to "conceal his improper expenditures" by shredding documents and deleting computer files after The Voice requested his expense records under the Freedom of Information Law.

Officials of the agency said that they would seek state legislation to transfer some of the responsibility for policing it from the state to the city's Department of Investigation. The Department of Investigation is seeking a budget; still to be negotiated, from the corporation to provide the oversight. Because the corporation is covered by state law, state legislation is needed to transfer the-conflict-of-interest oversight from Albany to the city.