Leid Stories - Tawana Brawley - 08/14/13

Justice 26 Years Denied: The Real ‘Hoax’ in the Tawana Brawley Case

Allegations in 1987 by a then-15-year-old African American girl from Wappingers Falls, N.Y., that four white men in an old police-type car grabbed her off the street on her way home from school, took her to a remote area, drugged her and held her as a sex slave for four days before dumping her near the garbage-disposal area of a housing complex triggered a series of exceedingly irregular -- and illegal -- actions by state investigators and prosecutors that cast the teen, Tawana Brawley, as an out-and-out liar, her legal advisers as fringe-element wackos looking to start a race war, and the suspects as solid citizens with impeccable reputations.
The alleged suspects included a state trooper; a police officer who was said to be remorseful and mysteriously was murdered in his home (state investigators initially had ruled his death a suicide); and an assistant district attorney in Dutchess County whose father was well connected politically. An outrageously irregular grand-jury “investigation” found Tawana guilty of perpetrating a hoax and slandering the men.
Leid Stories discusses the most recent outrageous illegalities in the case – a Virginia court order garnishing Tawana’s wages as a nurse to compensate the former D.A., Steven Pagones, close to $400,000 for defaming him.
“Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr., takes us deep into the belly of this 26-year-old legal beast.