A former New York union president was arrested yesterday and charged with taking money embezzled from the local’s employee benefit plan.

Hector Lopez, 54, who oversaw the Metal Polishers Union Local 8A-28A, was arraigned in Brooklyn federal court on charges that he accepted more than $740,000 from executives at firms doing business with the union.

Lopez was also charged with violating labor laws by living rent-free with his family in a sprawling Bergen County, NJ, home owned by one of the union’s trustees — a man whose firm had a collective-bargaining agreement with the local, officials said.