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Author Topic: Tawana Brawley Rape Hoax Leads To Defamation Damage Payout 26 Years Later  (Read 3415 times)
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MuffyBee
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« on: August 07, 2013, 08:44:51 AM »

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/tawana-brawley-hoax_n_3709058.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Tawana Brawley Rape Hoax Leads To Defamation Damage Payout 26 Years Later
Posted August 5, 2013, Updated August 6, 2013

The nation was stunned in 1987 by an African-American teenager's accusation that she had been brutally gang raped by a group of white men, including a local prosecutor and a local police officer. Those accusations turned out to be an elaborate hoax -- and decades later, one of the men wrongfully accused in the fabricated horrific crime is finally receiving reparations payments.

Eleven years after Tawana Brawley's sensational story was disproved, former prosecutor Steven Pagones successfully sued Brawley, her attorneys and Rev. Al Sharpton -- who had gotten involved with the case -- for slander, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. Although the others paid up, for years Brawley refused to pay the $185,000 in damages, worth closer to $400,000 with interest.


Brawley now works in Richmond, Va. as a nurse at the The Laurels of Bon Air nursing home, under a different name, Tawana V. Gutierrez, according to the Journal. A court has ordered Brawley's employer to garnish her wages in order to begin paying Pagones.

So far, Pagones has received around $3,700, the Journal reports.

 
After years of living under the radar, Brawley and her family were tracked to Virginia several years ago, according to the New York Daily News. The Daily News found her parents in 2007 living in a rural area of the state, where they broke their silence in order to defend Brawley.

"How could we make this up and take down the state of New York? We're just regular people," Brawley's mother Glenda told the Daily News. "We should be millionaires."

Unfazed, Pagones and his lawyer Gary Bolnick decided to file for the wage garnishment in January, according to the New York Post. Pagones said he's waited a long time for vindication, adding that it's not simply about the money.

“It’s a long time coming,” Pagones told The Post in a recent interview. “Every week, she’ll think of me. And every week, she can think about how she has a way out -- she can simply tell the truth.”

Still, Pagone and his attorney aren't optimistic that Brawley will be able to come up with the cash.
 
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MuffyBee
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« Reply #1 on: August 07, 2013, 08:51:46 AM »

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/04/justice/new-york-brawley-settlement/
Tawana Brawley starts paying man she falsely accused of rape in 1987
August 5, 2013


Tawana Brawley holds hands with Al Sharpton, left, in 1990

(CNN) -- After 26 years, Tawana Brawley has finally begun paying damages to Steven Pagones, a man she falsely accused of being among a group of men who raped her in 1987.
Brawley's payment comes in the form of nearly $3,800 in wage garnishments, Pagones told CNN Sunday. Brawley still owes Pagones more than $400,000 in defamation damages.
In fall 1987, Brawley, who is African-American, was found disheveled inside a trash bag with racial slurs written across her body in Wappingers Falls, New York. Brawley, then 15, claimed she was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by a group of white men.
In one of his first mainstream cases, activist Al Sharpton became Brawley's spokesman, staging rallies and calling for justice on her behalf.

When the case was brought before a grand jury, it concluded that Brawley had falsified the entire account.
Pagones, who was an assistant district attorney, filed a civil suit that named Brawley, Sharpton and Brawley's lawyers as defendants.
Sharpton has since paid his debt to Pagones. But Brawley, now 41 and a nurse living in Virginia, still owes Pagones more than $431,000.
Pagones says he will forgive the debt if Brawley issues a personal apology and finally clears his name of all wrongdoing.
"Just tell the truth. That's all I'm looking for here. I have been battling this since day one, and it's really all about telling the truth," Pagones said.
 
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« Reply #2 on: August 07, 2013, 08:58:34 AM »

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/pay_up_time_for_brawley_8q8M98zvpApS46BonCokvI
Pay-up time for Brawley: '87 rape-hoaxer finally shells out for slander
Just $431,000 to go

August 4, 2013



AP
OUTRAGE: Tawana Brawley attends an Atlanta rally with Al Sharpton in 1988, three months before a jury would rule that her rape tale was a hoax. She had been lying low until The Post last December found her living in Virginia.


Mike Theiler
NO E$CAPE: Tawana Brawley arrives at her nursing job in Richmond, Va., where she had been evading payment of defamation damages.


(2 pgs)
Twenty-five years after accusing an innocent man of rape, Tawana Brawley is finally paying for her lies.

Last week, 10 checks totaling $3,764.61 were delivered to ex-prosecutor Steven Pagones — the first payments Brawley has made since a court determined in 1998 that she defamed him with her vicious hoax.

A Virginia court this year ordered the money garnisheed from six months of Brawley’s wages as a nurse there.

She still owes Pagones $431,000 in damages. And she remains defiantly unapologetic.

“It’s a long time coming,” said Pagones, 52, who to this day is more interested in extracting a confession from Brawley than cash.

“Every week, she’ll think of me,” he told The Post. “And every week, she can think about how she has a way out — she can simply tell the truth.”

Brawley’s advisers in the infamous race-baiting case — the Rev. Al Sharpton, and attorneys C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox — have already paid, or are paying, their defamation debt. But Brawley, 41, had eluded punishment.

She’s now forced to pay Pagones $627 each month, possibly for the rest of her life. Under Virginia law, she can appeal the wage garnishment every six months.

“Finally, she’s paying something,” said Pagones’ attorney, Gary Bolnick. “Symbolically, I think it’s very important — you can’t just do this stuff without consequences.”

Pagones filed for the garnishment with the circuit court in Surry County, Va., in January, a few weeks after The Post tracked down Brawley to tiny Hopewell, Va.

Before The Post came knocking, not even her own co-workers knew she was the teen behind the spectacular 1987 case.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone about that,” Brawley growled after a Post reporter confronted her about her sordid past in December.

Employing aliases including Tawana Thompson and Tawana Gutierrez, she leads a relatively normal life by all appearances, residing in a neat brick apartment complex and working as a licensed practical nurse at The Laurels of Bon Air in Richmond.

She’s also raising a daughter, a neighbor said.
 
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  " Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."  - Daniel Moynihan
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