Article: State Calls Sharpton Group a Facade

The Rev. Al Sharpton, whose militant protests in racially charged controversies have made him the city's most prominent black activist, was described in court today as head of a "phantom organization" that he used as a "hustle" to feed his "hunger for cash."

At the opening of Sharpton's fraud and grand larceny trial, prosecutor Victor Genecin said the flamboyant Brooklyn preacher had used his anti-drug group as a front to benefit his second career as a record and concert promoter for such performers as Pia Zadora, Jermaine Jackson, New Edition and Run-DMC.

The National Youth Movement (NYM), which Sharpton started when he was 16, "was never anything more than a one-room office in Brooklyn ...

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