Fall Tawana Brawley

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Tawana Brawley at a press conference in 1987

The Tawana Brawley rape case involves Tawana Brawley, an African American woman, who in 1987 at age 15 received national media attention in the US for accusing six white men, some of them police officers, in the village of Wappingers Falls, New York of rape. The incident soon became a media circus, promulgated primarily by Reverend Al Sharpton and by attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason. There were no indictments in an investigation conducted by a grand jury in October 1988, which cited a lack of evidence, concluding she had not been abducted, assaulted, raped or sodomized.

Origins of the case

On November 28, 1987, Brawley, who had been missing for four days, was found lying conscious but unresponsive in a garbage bag several feet from an apartment where she had once lived. Her clothing was torn and burned, her body smeared with feces. She was taken to the emergency room, where various slurs and epithets were discovered written on her torso with a black substance described as charcoal.

A detective from the Sheriff's Juvenile Aid Bureau, among others, was summoned to interview Brawley, but she remained unresponsive. The family requested a black officer, which the police granted. Brawley, described as having an "extremely spacey" look on her face, communicated with this officer with nods of the head, shrugs of the shoulder, and written notes. The interview lasted 20 minutes, during which she uttered only one word: "neon." Through gestures and writing, however, she indicated she had been raped repeatedly in a wooded area by three white men, at least one of them a police officer. A sexual assault kit was administered, and police began building a case.

Tawana claimed she had been repeatedly raped by a group of white men but could provide no names or descriptions of her assailants. She later told others that there had been no rape, only other kinds of sexual abuse. Forensic tests found no evidence that a sexual assault of any kind had occurred. Nor was there any evidence of exposure to elements, which would be expected in a victim held for several days in the woods at a time when the temperature dropped below freezing at night.

There were other discrepancies in Tawana's story. On the morning after the alleged abduction, she was seen entering the empty apartment at Pavillion where she had once lived. Other witnesses claimed to have seen her at parties in a nearby town during the period when she was "missing." She had no bruises, contusions, scratches or other injuries except for a small bruise behind the left ear, which was determined to be several days old. One witness claimed to have seen her climb into the garbage bag in which she was found. Her mother, Glenda Brawley, was spotted at the apartment complex shortly before Tawana was seen getting into the garbage bag; the mother waited until that same afternoon to report Tawana's "disappearance" to the police. The investigation turned up evidence to indicate that the damage done to Tawana's clothing had occurred in the apartment. According to the grand jury report, all of "the items and instrumentalities necessary to create the condition in which Tawana Brawley appeared on Saturday, November 28, were present inside of or in the immediate vicinity of Apartment 19A." The feces had come from a neighbor's dog.

Public response

Public response to Brawley's story was at first mostly sympathetic. Bill Cosby, among others, pledged support for her. Articles about Brawley captured headlines across the country. Public rallies were held denouncing the incident. But racial tensions also climbed, and when up-and-coming civil rights activist Al Sharpton, with attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, began handling Brawley's publicity, the case quickly took on an explosive edge.

Under the wing of Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason, a full-fledged media sensation was born. The three claimed the entire case was a cover-up going all the way up to the state government. They named New York prosecutor Steven Pagones specifically, calling him a racist and a rapist, among other accusations.

Grand jury hearings

On October 6, 1988, the Abrams Grand Jury released its extensive and thorough 170-page report concluding Tawana Brawley had not been abducted, assaulted, raped and sodomized as had been claimed by Brawley and her advisors. The report further concluded that the "unsworn public allegations against Dutchess County Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones" were false and had no basis in fact. To issue the report, the Grand Jury heard from 180 witnesses, saw 250 exhibits and recorded more than 6,000 pages of testimony.

In the decision, the grand jury noted many problems with Brawley's story. Among these were the results of the rape kit, which did not indicate sexual assault. Also, despite her claim of having been held captive for days, Brawley was not suffering from exposure, was well nourished, and appeared to have brushed her teeth recently. There were no burns on her body, despite her clothing being charred. A shoe she was wearing was cut through, yet she had sustained no injuries to her foot. The racial epithets written on her were upside-down, which led to suspicion that Brawley herself wrote the words. Testimony from her schoolmates indicated she had attended a local party during the time of her supposed abduction, and one witness claimed to have observed Brawley climbing into the garbage bag.

A total of 180 witnesses were called during the hearings. Brawley herself never testified.

Aftermath

Brawley and her mother were issued subpoenas to testify in front of the grand jury but refused to do so. This may have prompted Brawley and her family to move hastily to Virginia, taking with them a "defense fund" of $300,000 which had been contributed by well-wishers. There remains an outstanding warrant in New York against the two for ignoring the subpoena.

The case still hangs over Sharpton, particularly following his entry into mainstream politics (in his race for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination, he addressed the nominating convention from its podium), not merely because he defended Brawley's story well after its veracity came into question but for the unfounded accusations he leveled, and, according to some of his critics, his "playing the race card."

Alton Maddox was disbarred by the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on May 21, 1990, after failing to appear before a disciplinary hearing to answer allegations regarding his conduct in the Brawley case. Brawley later converted to Islam and changed her name to Maryam Muhammad.

In 1998, Pagones was awarded $345,000 (he sought $150 million) through a lawsuit for defamation of character that he had brought against Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason, in which the jury found Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones, Maddox for two and Mason for one. The jury deadlocked on four of the 22 statements over which Pagones had sued, and eight statements were found non-defamatory.

Pagones had also sued Brawley. She defaulted by not appearing at the trial, and the judge ordered her to pay him damages of $185,000. As of 2003, none of the award had been paid.

Maintaining innocence

Brawley maintains she did not invent the story, and she still has supporters. Sharpton has never apologized to Pagones for naming him a perpetrator.

See also

• 2006 Duke University lacrosse case
• Race baiting

External links

• The grand jury report on the Brawley case
• A CNN story on the Pagones suit
• Pat Chin: Tawana Brawley Speaks Out, Workers World Party, December 12, 1997. Abgerufen am 14. Januar 2006  (another view of Brawley's appearance in Brooklyn in 1997)
• Pagones v. Maddox, et al. — Decision of the Supreme Court of New York, County of Duchess.
• New York Times Tawana Brawley topic page