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Article: Ready for your close-up, Mr. Sharpton?(New York jury finds Al Sharpton's statements regarding alleged rape of Tawana Brawley defamatory)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- July 18, 1998
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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NEW YORK
''WE STATED openly that Steven Pagones did it. If we're lying, sue us, so we can go into court and prove it.'' It was inevitable that Al Sharpton's mouth would eventually get him into trouble; inevitable too that the Tawana Brawley affair, where a young black girl claimed that she had been raped by a gang of white men and left in a rubbish bag, would come back to haunt both Mr Sharpton and New York. On July 13th a jury in upstate New York found that seven statements by Mr Sharpton in various forums in the late 1980s, all naming Mr Pagones, a local prosecutor, as one of Ms Brawley's alleged assailants, were defamatory. Mr Sharpton, the inspiration for the ...