Justice Finds Tawana Brawley

I heard Al Sharpton on television about an hour ago moralizing on the birther movement and its acne-like stubbornness. No matter the facts, them’s that want to believe that Mr. Obama is a foreigner without allegiance to this great nation will think what they will. Don’t expect them to apologize when you point out how misguided they are.

Several days ago justice caught up to one of Sharpton’s former “clients,” Tawana Brawley. You remember Ms. Brawley, right? As a teen-ager she showed up near her home in Wappingers Falls, New York, naked and covered with feces. Ms. Brawley claimed to have been raped by three white men. Sharpton and and attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason jumped onto the case. Eventually the trio claimed, on Ms. Brawley’s behalf, that Steven Pagones, an Assistant District Attorney in Dutchess County, NY, was involved in the attack. 

Forensic and other evidence ultimately determined that the charges were complete bullshit, but by the time he was exonerated Steven Pagones had been put through the ringer, and the $185,000 judgment he was awarded seemed likely to remain a phantom victory. Mason and Maddox, generally regarded as clowns by the time the matter worked its way through the system, were, along with Mr. Sharpton and Ms. Brawley, also held financially responsible for the fiasco.

As noted, the long arm of justice finally caught up with Tawana Brawley. Now 40 and living in Virginia, where she works as a nurse, she has begun having her wages garnished to help compensate Mr. Pagones for the horror she caused. According to reports, she’s about $3,700 lighter in the pocket this week than she would have been if authorities had not found her. With interest she’ll be paying out about 400k; on a per bed pan basis that comes out to a lot of bowel movements, which in its way adds a poetic symmetry to the story.

Al’s been asked about the case from time to time. Make no mistake: he’s a very smart man and has done a great deal of good work over the years. But pride comes before the fall, and Al Sharpton has consistently refused to drop the rhetoric and offer the simple phrase that Steven Pagones, like Barack Obama, is owed by those who falsely accuse him:

“I’m sorry.”

8/6/2013