In filing a lawsuit yesterday to oust the Apollo Theatre Foundation board of directors, Attorney General Dennis Vacco has taken the only action that can save the famed Harlem landmark.

Alerted to chicanery at the theater by a series of Daily News editorials, Vacco opened an investigation in May. What he found echoed what he read on this page. To wit: The state-owned theater is crumbling, empty and broke, victimized by sweetheart contracts and a somnambulent board of directors that saw no evil as the theater was deprived of millions of dollars it was due.

Vacco's suit charges 18 counts of dereliction involving years of fiscal finagling, bidding boondoggles, licensing irregularities and a pattern of hiding profits that left the theater with a pittance. While the "It's Showtime at the Apollo" television show generated revenues of $26 million, the theater, which owned the rights to the show, got a mere $200,000 over five years.

And through it all, Vacco charges, the board "generally abdicated, through their conduct and omissions, their fiduciary responsibility to reasonably, prudently, loyally, carefully and obediently manage" the theater's affairs.

Those are damning charges, backed up by persuasive facts. And they fall heaviest on Rep. Charles Rangel, the Harlem pol and Apollo board chairman. Vacco is seeking his removal, along with the entire board, save four members he says tried to do the right thing in recent months.

Count on Rangel, seeking his 15th term in Congress, to decry the suit as a political attack by a Republican attorney general weeks before Election Day. Don't be fooled. Even Vacco's Democratic opponent, Eliot Spitzer, recognizes that the problems at the Apollo must be addressed.

Vacco gave the Apollo board multiple chances to avoid the suit, but the members ducked, dodged and deceived until he had no alternative.

Rangel let his long-time pal, businessman Percy Sutton, produce "It's Showtime at the Apollo" in the theater while turning a blind eye to the requirement that the theater receive 25% of the show's revenue. After the foundation's controller calculated Sutton's arrears at $4.4 million, he coughed up $145,000, bringing his total payment to a mere $200,000. The board accepted the fraction without complaint — thereby sealing its fate as a shill for Sutton instead of protector of the theater.

And that's only the money owed for the past. Still disputed is a new one-year contract the Rangel board handed to Sutton for "Showtime," even after the businessman submitted a post-deadline bid to top a rival. The board accepted Sutton's $1.6 million bid but has yet to collect a nickel. As Vacco said, "Nobody has been trying to get the $1.6 million for the foundation. It's so transparent that this was a sham."

That, sad to say, is what the Apollo has been for years — a sham. That's because no one was minding the store. To Rangel and Sutton and their allies on the board, the Harlem landmark was just a cash cow to be milked.

Those days are over, and the Apollo must be returned to its rightful place as the crown jewel of Harlem and an icon for the entire city.