info@nationalactionnetwork.netAttention Al:Remember this?
Now that you have the first real job you ever had maybe you should pay off her debt.
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Source:
Daily Mail
Tawana Brawley finally starts paying $431,000 debt to man she wrongly accused of gang-raping and kidnapping her 26 years ago after court docks her nurses wages
- Brawley, 41, last week paid the first of many checks to Steven Pagones whom she owes hundreds of thousands of dollars
- In 1987, the then-15-year-old dragged the ex-prosecutor's name through the mud when she called him a 'gang-raping, kidnapping racist'
- Brawley was ordered to pay $190,000 in 1998 but the figure has ballooned with interest
- A court ruled in January that her wages as a nurse be docked to settle her debt
PUBLISHED: 09:14 EST, 4 August 2013 | UPDATED: 10:04 EST, 4 August 2013Debts: Tawana Brawley, pictured, has paid the first of many checks to Steven Pagones whom she defamed in 1987
A woman who lied about being gang-raped 26 years ago has finally begun to pay back an innocent man whose reputation she left in tatters.
In January, former New York prosecutor Steven Pagones filed court papers seeking the $431,000 he is owed by Tawana Brawley, who, as a 15-year-old, falsely labeled him a 'gang-raping, kidnapping racist.'
Last week, Brawley sent him her first payment - 10 checks totaling $3,764.61 - after the Virginia court ordered the money garnisheed from the nurse's wages. It comes 15 years after a court ruled that she defamed him with her nasty hoax.
'It's a long time coming,' Pagones, 52, told The New York Post.
The ex-prosecutor said he remains more interested in extracting a confession from Brawley than the money she owes.
'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.'
Brawley's advisers in the case — the Reverend Al Sharpton, and attorneys C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox — have already paid, or are paying their debt to Pagones.
Until now, Brawley, 41, has refused to pay out but she is now forced to cough up $627 each month to the man who is one of three whose name she dragged through the mud in 1987, possibly for the rest of her life.
'Finally, she's paying something,' Pagones' attorney, Gary Bolnick told The Post. 'Symbolically, I think it's very important — you can't just do this stuff without consequences.'
On November 28, 1987, the then-15-year-old was found in a trash bag, dazed, smeared with feces with the word 'n****r' scrawled on her body.
Here to collect: Pagones says he would consider dropping his demand for money if Brawley admits she made up her story against him
'For at least 25 years, she has been living a major lie,' Pagones said in January. 'To me, this has always been about responsibility and accountability.'
She told police she had been abducted by two white men and driven to the woods where they and four others ravaged her for four days - one of which had a badge.
The case was catapulted onto the national stage by her attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, and the then-little-known Rev Al Sharpton, who claimed she was raped 33 times.
Brawley, who now goes by the name Tawana Gutierrez, is a single mom working as a nurse in Virginia.
She may now have as much as 25 percent of her wages garnished to repay Pagones, his lawyer, Garry Bolnick, told the New York Post.
'People criticize me for going after a hardworking single mother trying to support herself and child,' Pagones said. 'My argument has been she has not been held accountable.'
'If she is not going to tell the truth, then it is about the money. That is the only way to hold her accountable," said Pagones, who is now principal owner of a private investigations firm.
Sensational: The Brawley case was massive and the young girl graced the cover of numerous magazines and newspapers including People, pictured
Racial tensions: Rev Al Sharpton catapulted the case of Tawana Brawley, center, onto the main stage and made him a household name across the country
Historic case: Reverend Al Sharpton, pictured in 1988, picketed outside the hotel of New York governor Mario Cuomo
The Brawley case was a national scandal and had celebrities weighing in, with Bill Cosby posting a $25,000 reward for information on the case.
Don King promised $100,000 for Brawley's education and boxer Mike Tyson gave her a $30,000 watch to ease her pain.
Fishkill Police Officer Harry Crist Jr. was implicated after being found dead in his apartment a week after Brawley was discovered, and Pagones was also accused when he stepped in with an alibi for the 28-year-old.
But in 1988 a grand jury found the whole shocking story was a hoax, and Brawley was never raped.
Now 40 years old, The New York Post tracked her down working as a nurse in Virginia.
'I don't want to talk to anyone about that,' Brawley told the newspaper recently as she emerged from her apartment in Hopewell, Virginia, wearing scrubs.
She lives what appears to be a relatively normal life in a neatly kept brick apartment complex with signs warning of video surveillance cameras.
To avoid detection, Brawley goes by the aliases of Thompson and Gutierrez and has a young daughter, a neighbor told the Post.
False claims: Brawley, pictured in 1988, claimed she was gang raped by a group of white men, one of whom had a badge
Rally: Tawana Brawley, left in 1988, of Wappinger Falls, N.Y., was the center of the legal controversy over her rape charges
She reportedly works as a licensed practical nurse at The Laurels of Bon Air in Richmond. But her co-workers have been in the dark about the incredible story of brutality, which turned out to be false.
'Are you serious? We don't know her by that name. Isn't that a trip?' one staffer said, adding that the woman who they call Tawana Gutierrez was 'a good worker.'
According to a neighbor, Brawley has lived in Hopewell - Virginia's most crime-laden town - for at least a year.
'Tawana V. Gutierrez' and 'Tawana V. Thompson' have held the same nursing license since 2006, state records show. The Virginia Board of Nursing confirmed issuing it to a 'Tawana Vacenia Thompson Gutierrez.'
Brawley maintains a PO box in Claremont, Va., under the name Gutierrez, according to The Post's sources.
The grand jury panel, which heard from 180 witnesses over its seven-month investigation, found that Brawley made up the story to avoid being punished for staying out late and missing school.
They found evidence she had ran away from home and was hiding out in her parents' former apartment after they got evicted.
We believe you: The case polarized New York City in the late 1980s
Lawsuit: Brawley, pictured in 1997, spoke at a rally in support of Alton Maddox who lost a lawsuit for defamation of character by Steven Pagones
Many believed that Brawley feared her stepdad Ralph King's and needed an alibi for her absence. King spent seven years in prison in the 1970s for killing his first wife.
Traces of the charcoal-like material used to scrawl the hateful word on her body were found under her fingernails, and she showed no signs of genital trauma or exposure, the jury found. One witness said Brawley was spotted climbing into the bin bag.
'It is probable that in the history of this state, never has a teenager turned the prosecutorial and judicial systems literally upside down with such false claims,' state Supreme Court Justice S. Barrett Hickman wrote at the time.
Pagones has tried to forget the sorry affair but says he can't.
'It'll come up randomly. It'll come up when something happens with Sharpton,' he told The Post.
Pagones won a defamation lawsuit against Sharpton, Brawley and her lawyers in 1998.
Maddox was found liable for $97,000, Mason for $188,000, and Sharpton was ordered to pay $66,000. Brawley was ordered to pay $190,000 at 9 per cent annual interest but hasn't paid any of that bill.
'Through her silence, she's as guilty of libel as Maddox, Mason and Sharpton,' he told the newspaper. 'The only way to hold her accountable — at least at this stage — is financially.'
