Posted on 05/11/2002 2:07:35 PM PDT by restornu
On November 28, 1987 Joyce Lloray happened to look out of her apartment's sliding glass door in time to see a black girl climb into a big green plastic garbage bag and then lay still on the cold, muddy ground. Mrs. Lloray called the Duchess County Sheriff's Department, setting into motion a chain of bizarre and tragic events that made the quiet little town of Wappingers Falls, New York -- population 5,000 -- the focus of national attention.
The girl in the trash bag on the grounds of the Pavillion Condominiums was 15-year-old Tawana Brawley. Four days earlier she had played hooky from school in order to visit a former boyfriend, Todd Buxton, who was incarcerated at the Orange County Jail in nearby Newburgh. That evening Tawana took a bus to the town of Wappingers, where she had lived with her mother in Apartment 19A at the Pavillion Condominiums prior to their moving to Wappingers Falls. According to Tawana, she was abducted by several white men shortly after she got off the bus; the men, one of whom wore a badge, took her to a wooded area and sexually abused her over a period of several days.
When police and paramedics arrived at the Pavillion Condominiums in response to Joyce Lloray's call, they found Tawana's clothes torn, cut and partially burned. Her body and clothing were smeared with feces, and on her chest and torso the words "KKK," "NIGGER" and "BITCH" had been written with what appeared to be charcoal. Since it seemed that Tawana's civil rights had been violated, the FBI was called in. A rape kit was administered at St. Francis Hospital and sent under seal to an FBI lab for analysis. Interviewed at the hospital by a black officer from the Poughkeepsie Police Department, 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. She was seen entering the empty apartment at Pavillion where she had once lived on the morning after the alleged abduction. 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. 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.
The Tawana Brawley case was quickly seized upon by a trio of black activists who viewed it as a means by which to demonstrate that the police and judicial system were racist and corrupt. Attorney Alton H. Maddox had been beaten by a white mob as a teenager in Newnan, Georgia; confrontational and virulently anti-white, Maddox seemed at times less interested in justice than in the potential for conflict that high profile cases like Tawana Brawley's provided. C. Vernon Mason, another New York attorney, also used cases to drum up publicity and address wider issues. Al Sharpton was a flamboyant Pentecostal preacher who spent $2,000 a year for hair care at Brooklyn's Prima Donna Beauty Salon; his hunger for celebrity caused some to question both his motives and methods. Maddox, Mason and Sharpton had joined forces before, in the Howard Beach case a year earlier. Several black men had been accosted by a white mob and one of them, Michael Griffith, was chased out onto a highway where he was struck by a vehicle and killed. In previous cases, Maddox and Mason had used the tactic of non-cooperation, refusing to let their clients testify in an effort to facilitate a "miscarriage of justice" in which the perpetrator(s) would get off. In this way they could heighten the outrage of the black community and claim the result proved that the judicial system discriminated against blacks.
The trio muzzled Tawana Brawley and claimed everyone from the local police to New York Governor Mario Cuomo was engaged in a cover-up. The Brawley camp eventually accused Harry Crist, Jr., a part-time police officer, after Crist committed suicide on December 2, and Steven A. Pagones, a Duchess County district attorney, of participating in the alleged abduction and rape. Further investigation revealed that Crist had killed himself for reasons unconnected with the Brawley case, while Pagones' testimony convinced the Poughkeepsie grand jury that he was not involved in any wrongdoing. Undeterred, Maddox, Mason and Sharpton staged numerous media events, from news conferences and rallies to appearances on television shows like Phil Donahue and The Morton Downey, Jr. Show to keep national attention focused on the case.
As time went on, the public grew increasingly skeptical of Tawana Brawley's charges and the ill-advised tactics of her handlers. When Tawana's mother was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury and failed to do so, a warrant for her arrest was issued; Maddox, Mason and Sharpton took her to the Ebenezer Baptist Church in New York City and organized a rally, hoping (in vain) that the authorities would force their way into the church and seize her. Two of Sharpton's associates quit, claiming the reverend had known all along that the case was a hoax. Other black leaders criticized Brawley's advisers -- Ray Innes of the Congress of Racial Equality and attorney Conrad Lynn among them. They feared the hoax and the antics of publicity hounds like Sharpton would prove detrimental to the cause of racial equality.
After seven months of examining police and medical records and listening to the testimony of over one hundred witnesses, the grand jury determined that Tawana's charges were false and that her condition when found had been self-inflicted. The question remained: Why had she lied? One hypothesis was that since Tawana had already been grounded on the day she skipped school to visit her ex-boyfriend, she had made up the story of her abduction in order to avoid further punishment.
The Aftermath
The Brawley case resurfaced a decade later when Steven Pagones filed a defamation suit against Maddox, Mason and Sharpton; he had already won a default judgment against Tawana in 1991. By 1997, Tawana had moved to Washington and changed her name to Maryam Muhammad. She returned to New York to speak before a rally at Brooklyn's Bethany Baptist Church in support of her advisers, insisting that she had told the truth about the abduction. The court found otherwise. Her advisers were ordered to pay Pagones $345,000 while Tawana had to pay $185,000. "Tawana Brawley appears caught up in her own fiction," said New York State Supreme Court Justice S. Barrett Hickman. Unfortunately, the rest of the country had to be caught up in it, too.
Al Sharpton (photo by Tim Roske, AP)
REFERENCES
Newsweek, 14 March 1988, 10 October 1988
Time, 28 March 1988, 20 June 1988, 4 July 1988
"Tawana Brawley Sticks to Story" Associated Press, 3 December 1997
"Sharpton Remains Feisty in Face of Pointed Questioning" Michael Hill, Associated Press, 10 February 1998
"Woman Hit With Damages in Suit" Associated Press, http://www.courttv.com/legaldocs/newsmakers/tawana/part4.html#pagoneshttp://www.courttv.com/legaldocs/newsmakers/tawana/part4.html#pagoneshttp://www.courttv.com/legaldocs/newsmakers/tawana/part4.html#pagones Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax Robert D. McFadden et al (New York: Bantam Books, 1990)
Report of the Grand Jury Concerning the Tawana Brawley Investigation (www.courttv.com/legaldocs/newsmakers/tawana/part1.html)
REPORT OF THE GRAND JURY CONCERNING THE TAWANA BRAWLEY INVESTIGATION
It sounds then MO of Sharpton Inc.?
Steven Pagones filed a defamation suit against Maddox, Mason and Sharpton; he had already won a default judgment against Tawana in 1991. He was politically destroyed, and Sharpton has yet to pay one cent to Pagones suit that he won.
Formal Request for Janet Reno's Accident and Drunk Driving Records
Clinton/Gore/Boxer/Reno/Dahsel/Gephart and many are renousing Bush as being elected and they do like to destroy those in their way even Jeb Bush.
FROM: Arlene DiBenigno
Director Of External Affairs DATE: Tuesday, May 6, 2002
RE: Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection
Earlier today, Governor Jeb Bush established a Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection to review the performance of the State's child protection system in Miami-Dade County.
The following is the press release issued by the Governor's Office which includes Governor Bush's statement.
Thank you.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: KATIE MUÑIZ
MONDAY, MAY 6, 2002
(850) 488-5394
STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR JEB BUSH REGARDING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A BLUE RIBBON PANEL ON CHILD PROTECTION
TALLAHASSEE - "I am today establishing a Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection to review the performance of the State's child protection system in Miami-Dade County.
"The panel will be made up of Dave Lawrence, current chair of the Florida Partnership for School Readiness and former publisher of the Miami Herald; Sr. Jeanne O'Laughlin, President of Barry University; Carol Licko, partner with Hogan and Hartson law firm; and Sara Herald, current Group Chief Administrative Officer of Union Planters Bank and former regional vice-president of Children's Home Society. I am asking that Dave Lawrence chair this panel.
"These community leaders bring a wealth of experience and wisdom to the task before them. They can help us all be sure that we are doing everything possible to keep our children safe.
"The recent case of Rilya Wilson has raised very troubling questions about the state's performance in protecting children in the child welfare system. It is essential that we resolve these issues quickly and ensure that children in the care and custody of the state are properly supervised and cared for. In the case of Rilya, the system failed. We must guard against failure in other cases.
"I am asking that the Panel focus its attention on the safety of children in the child welfare system. The Panel will also specifically focus on the adequacy of oversight and accountability within the Department of Children and Families.
"I am asking that the Panel submit an interim report to me by May 20, 2002 and a final report by June 3, 2002. This is an aggressive schedule for the Panel's work, but the critical importance of the task - protecting our vulnerable children - demands urgent action."
#######
For more information, please visit www.myflorida.com
==================================
How can they put all this blame on Jeb? It's HIS fault for the employee who never did her job? DO you know how many state workers NEVER DO THEIR JOB??? I cannot put this blame on Jeb...he should fire this typical state worker and her boss....that's it.
The Dems in the past have "CRAP!" and than blame it on the other guy -"YOU DID IT!" Or they are famous for framing one, they set traps, and the other person is blindsided!
They feel they must to win this coming election no matter what!!!!
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know.
restornu, while I think the Dems are going a little too far to make Jeb responsible for the missing child it's also kind of farfetched for you to assume that they would purposely take this child. If that is what happened it wouldn't be much of a surprise but I think it's a bit of a leap at this time.
But the Democrats have an even bigger motive to win.
They want to win in Florida against Bush's brother, so they can "prove" the Florida election was stolen in 2000.
Already, the Democrats are keeping alive the embers of 2000, hoping it energizes their base in 2004.
Jeb Bush also will face the liberal media in Florida, particularly a cabal of ultra-liberal newspapers that dominate the state, including the Miami Herald, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, and others.
Already the media in Florida have begun a drumbeat of negative press criticism against Jeb - in an apparent effort to lay the groundwork for Reno.
The latest media smear effort being exploited by the Democrats is the tragedy of Rilya Wilson, the missing 5-year-old Florida girl who disappeared while under state supervision.
Though polls still show Bush way ahead in the polls, the liberal New York Times is trumpeting the controversy.
In a May 8 story, Times reporter Dana Canedy wrote that Democrats are "Sensing vulnerability in Gov. Jeb Bush's re-election bid."
As NewsMax.com reported on May 7, Rilya was placed in the care of her godmother, Geralyn Graham, two years ago. In January 2001 a woman claiming to be a state employee appeared at her door to take the little girl for neurological tests. That was the last time Rilya Wilson was seen.
According to Juvenile Judge Cindy Lederman caseworker Deborah Muskelly continued to assure her Rilya was being raised properly. Muskelly resigned in March over discrepancies in another case, and it wasn't discovered Rilya was missing until April 25 when another caseworker tried to see her.
Desperate for an issue to boost their sagging poll figures, Democrats and their media allies in Florida and across the country have zeroed in on the case of the missing child, noting that it took the Florida Department of Children and Families 15 months to discover she'd apparently vanished into thin air when she was supposedly living under their close supervision.
I think the folks at Prima Donna owe Sharpton some Reparations for his bad hair-doo!
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