‘BUILDING’ A CASE VS. DAWSONS

Rosario squat kin buy up Village units

ACTRESS Rosario Dawson famously grew up in an East Village squatter’s den, where she was discovered sitting on the stoop.

Her parents continued to live in the East 13th Street building after the “Sin City” actress made it big and amassed a net worth of some $16 million.

Now, four of her family members and a family friend are in line to buy dirt-cheap apartments in the newly renovated building under a city program that converts derelict housing into affordable co-ops. Taxpayers subsidized the renovation.

“She’s supportive of her parents. I don’t understand why she hasn’t acquired housing for them elsewhere so these units could be for New Yorkers in need,” said Annie Wilson, one of the building’s founding homesteaders.

Another resident chafed, “This is low-income housing. They’re not supposed to be profiting from anything to do with it.”

The apartments can be legally resold, but there are price limits.

Not only are members of the Dawson family mounting a legal land grab of five pads, they have bullied and connived their way into controlling a third of the 14-unit building over the past two decades, residents said.

The six-story structure was built in 1899 and, with its elevator, was considered luxury housing at the time. By 1984, when Wilson arrived, 30 feral cats occupied apartments and the first two floors were filled with garbage.

The squatters got power from an extension cord run to another property. Wilson, an artist and activist, and others worked to clean it up and bring in water and electricity.

The Dawsons — mom Isabel, dad Gregory, and Rosario and her brother, Clay — showed up in 1986 and were voted by other squatters to occupy Apartment 4C.

“A place with a huge, gaping hole in the ground and plastic for windows. I saw the stress on my parents,” Rosario once told an interviewer.

The family soon moved to Texas, according to Wilson and public records. They sublet their squatter’s apartment to others, Wilson said.

“There’s such a thing as squatter ethos — you’re not supposed to do that,” Wilson said.

The Dawsons would come back and forth to the East Village. Rosario has said filmmaker Larry Clark discovered her at the age of 15 as she sat on her front stoop and cast her in his directorial debut, “Kids.” After the film, the budding actress returned to Texas and graduated from high school there.

Public records show Isabel Dawson was arrested for assault in Texas in 1997 and sentenced to 12 months’ probation and a $500 fine.

When the family eventually returned to East 13th Street, tensions escalated between Isabel Dawson, who is nearly 6 feet tall, and neighbors.

“She has shoved me and pushed me numerous times,” Wilson said.

Alfa Diallo, the president of the Tenants’ Association, wrote in a 2001 letter that “Isabel Dawson’s threatening and violent behavior have jeopardized the safety of the residents.”

The family began spreading its tentacles to other apartments. One was taken over while their next-door neighbor was out tending bar.

“He came back from work at 5 in the morning and they had built a wall through his apartment,” Wilson recalled. She said Rosario lived in the apartment and it later became Clay’s home.

THE Dawsons eventually split up and persuaded their fellow squatters to allow Gregory to temporarily live in a first-floor unit that residents had hoped to turn into a gallery space or music room.

“Guess what? They kept the unit. They didn’t give it up,” Wilson alleged.

Isabel’s brother, Nicky Scott, took over Gregory’s apartment but sublet it out to others, Wilson said. He had a son, Juan, who also lived in the building. He was convicted last year for three separate sexual assaults in 2014.

In 1998, Rex Hughes, a friend of the Dawsons, claimed the building’s basement bike room as his home.

Resident Marisa DeDominicis described in a statement that tenants’ bikes were thrown in a heap and that Scott “told me to stay out and that the basement was his and they he would ‘mess me up’ if I tried to go into his apartment. Then, ‘Rex,’ another guest of Isabel’s, came out and told me to stay out of his apt. or he would ‘f--k me up.’ ”

Isabel Dawson continued to come and go, and lived for a time in the Dominican Republic. In 2010, she demanded to live in a first-floor apartment she once occupied that had been taken over by someone else.

“This is a squat, I can live here,” she reportedly yelled.

In 2013, Isabel took a jackhammer to the concrete floor to open up access to the basement. She installed a spiral staircase and created a duplex apartment, all without city permits and approvals, residents said.

ISABEL told The Villager newspaper at the time that allegations that she and her family had taken over apartments were “gossip.”

“People malign me because my daughter is a celebrity and they think that her paycheck is mine. Rosario is my kid and she was raised in this building, so we can’t be as horrible as peo-

ple make us out to be,” Isabel said.

She also told the newspaper that she had turned over a new leaf and that she prayed for everyone in the building.

“I have not misbehaved for like a decade, not really-eeely misbehaved,” she said.

THE building has been owned since 2002 by the nonprofit Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, known as UHAB. The city sold UHAB the property, along with 10 others, for $1 each. The nonprofit was supposed to help turn the buildings into coops so the squatters could take legal ownership of the properties.

But the co-op conversion on East 13th Street has dragged on for more than a decade, and the $12 million renovation did not begin until 2015. The city kicked in $1.78 million.

The squatters are being given the chance to buy apartments for $2,500 each, but have to earn no more than $53,450 a year and the home must be a primary residence, according to the city.

Isabel balked at having to adhere to a 270-day residency rule for living there, saying her charity work took her on the road much of the time.

“Is there a possibility to make that six months?” she asked a UHAB rep during a December 2016 meeting.

Isabel and Gregory Dawson also own other property, a seasonal cottage in upstate Sullivan County, records show. Scott has owned a house in Houston since 2008 and has voted there, public records show.

Anya Irons, UHAB’s lawyer and operations manager, said at the meeting that the nonprofit decided who would be offered an apartment, including the Dawson clan.

“If there are frustrations related to who was and was not able to purchase, that is on us. That’s where the blame lies. We had to make a decision, and we had to make a call, and we did that,” Irons said.

But early on, the group recognized only one Dawson family member, Gregory, as an original homesteader, according to a 2008 document and a recording of a 2003 meeting.

Irons and UHAB refused to answer questions from The Post.

Adam Leitman Bailey, a lawyer who represents the Dawsons and some of the other residents, said he had reviewed tax returns for all of the residents and they qualified to buy the apartments.

“I can guarantee you that none of them are wealthy,” he said.

Isabel and Rosario Dawson did not return messages seeking comment, and other family members could not be reached.

“What matters is a person’s actual income, not who they are related to,” said a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.