Alton Maddox in Poughkeepsie

Reprints of excerpts from OTP’s 44-page Evidence Concealed, Now Revealed award-winning feature published in 1998 About the Tawana Brawley case, resumes with “A DETECTIVE’S STORY” by Graham B. Weatherspoon, Pt V

The fellow said he had tapes to expose this conspiracy of Tawana, her family, Sharpton, and the others, that there was no rape. But when it came down to the bottom line, his tapes were blank.

And this witness came from Giuliani. He was the one who said, “I have this witness.”
Yes.

So when he puts in the paper that he congratulates Pagones on his “victory”, he’s not exactly disinterested?
No, he’s not.

Another statement that the jury did not find reckless or defamatory: “Plaintiff claims that the defendant Rev. Al Sharpton on or about June 10, 1988, at the Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, made the following statement: “By law, they could have required Mr. Pagones to come in front of this Grand Jury months ago and waive immunity since he was a public official.

They gave him all of this time to fabricate alibi witnesses.” What evidence did Sharpton have to make that statement?

Edwin Garcia, the former New York State Trooper who worked out of Poughkeepsie at the time of the incident, was a very close friend to Steven Pagones. He stated on the stand that he taught Steven how to shoot and went with him when he purchased his first firearm. And that he would do anything for Steve. He protected him; he was his bodyguard. One would have to ask, “Why would a twenty-five-year-old Assistant District Attorney, need a bodyguard? And he’s not even investigating organized crime, white collar crime, or any major corruption in the County.” Why would he need a bodyguard?

Yeah why would he need a bodyguard?
The authorities had various agencies apparently working on this case. There was the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI, the New York State Police, and the District Attorney’s office. Edward covered the New York State Police. He stated, “Any information that was gathered by us, I made sure Steve got a copy of it.”

Is that right?
He further went on to say, “Steven introduced me to a woman who he said was his cousin. She was an FBI agent. And she was in the Grand Jury, giving him all the information in the Grand Jury.” Edward Garcia testified to this in open court, prior to Hilda Kolgut, FBI agent, arriving in court. He also stated in sworn testimony, that Steven Pagones was stalking Reverend Sharpton. And on one occasion, Steven wanted him to go with him and the FBI agent to New York City to check out Sharpton, and that they wear disguises.

Did they go? They actually went to New York?
He testified he was trying to figure out which guns they should take in case things got kind of hot. But then he thought more about it and did not go that day, but Steve and the FBI agent went. Wearing disguises. So they were stalking Al Sharpton at that time. So we have Garcia providing Steven with information, and he testified that Hilda Kolgut was providing information. When Hilda Kolgut finally appeared in court, she appears with a Deputy U.S. Attorney from the Southern District, whose role is to object and intervene relative to any
question that is put to her that they don’t think that we should know about. Like this is some Top-Secret case. Hilda Kolgut said, “Well, I only said to Steven, ‘This is what they’re saying about you in the papers.’” As a Federal Agent, she was only talking about what was in the papers? He didn’t need her to give him that information, he could read that himself. She also stated that she was a long-time friend of Steven’s, had been to his house, knew his fiancée’, and had
dinner with them. She went to talk to him about the case. He refused to talk officially to the FBI. He refused to take a polygraph, she told him that he had to give an interview or the gloves would come off. I guess the kid gloves were glued on because they have not come off as yet. In fact, Assistant District Attorney O’Neill was asked, “Did you ever confront Steven and ask if he was involved in this matter?” O’Neill said, “No, I did not.” “Why didn’t you?” He said, “I knew what the answer would be.”

Meaning what?
He didn’t even want to get into that.

He knew better.
Exactly. If the DA is going to seek to recuse himself, let somebody else deal with it.

But even given all of this, the Grand Jury Report “exonerates” Mr. Pagones. How did that come to pass?
(Reading from the dictionary) Exonerate means, “To free from responsibility, obligation or task. To free from the burden.” A Grand Jury does not free anybody from responsibility or a task. A Grand Jury has one sole purpose, to determine whether or not there is enough evidentiary material to proceed with a trial. The Grand Jury does not exonerate. Only a trial by jury can exonerate. That decision is called, “Not Guilty” or an acquittal. When the Grand Jury votes “No True Bill”, which they voted on Steven, it doesn’t mean they exonerate him. It means we don’t have enough to go on.

I see.
It means you haven’t given us enough information to make a wise determination. That could mean going back and doing your homework. That did not happen. Steven Pagones is not exonerated even in the civil trial, because the civil trial is not dealing with criminality. It’s not dealing with kidnapping, abduction, unlawful imprisonment, assault, rape, or sodomy. The civil trial was dealing with statements. It’s dealing with oral statements and whether or not they were made maliciously, libelously, or in a slanderous manner. In order for Steven Pagones to present a case, as a public official, the law states that the public official is to be held to a higher standard that the person on the street. In order for you to prove lying, slander or malice as a public official, you first of all have to be squeaky clean, not slipshod. If Steven Pagones was squeaky clean, he would not have been identified as a suspect by the FBI, the Sheriff’s Department, or judge Judith Hillary.

Since he was thought of as a suspect, what kind of investigation did they do? How was he turned into not a suspect? Was it the Grand Jury Report?
The Grand Jury, put together by Abrams, is a group of twenty-odd people who know nothing about law, criminal investigation, forensic science, nothing for the most part. They’re put into a room with a couple of guys with suits and ties saying, “I’m the Attorney General of the State of New York, and this is the Special Prosecutor. They come in there and say there are certain facts and evidence that we want to present to you, and you will determine whether to indict or not. Depending on how the prosecutor presents that case, the jury is going to go one way or the other. A Grand Jury is a unilateral presentation.
It’s only the way the presenter wants you to see it. It’s not predicated on truth. It’s predicated on what the presenter wants you to believe. In a trial, you have two sides to present. That doesn’t exist in a Grand Jury, you only vote with what you’re given. So what was the Grand Jury given? They’re given Michael Baden, the man who said that the Kennedy assassination was the work of a lone gunman. Nobody believed that in 1963.

He was the same pathologist? What else did he do?
Martin Luther King and O.J. Simpson for two others. See, Michael Baden, who was the medical examiner for New York City, was fired by Ed Koch in 1985. He surfaces some time later as the pathologist for the New York State Police. The Attorney General is also Counsel to the New York State Police. Scott Patterson is also a suspect in this matter, and Scott’s father is one of the heads of the State Police. So he’s right there next to the Attorney General. So if Scotty is involved in something and Daddy is right next to the Attorney General, you’d better believe that “the right thing” is going to be done.

So the Attorney General presented a case that was not strong enough for the Grand Jury to hand down an indictment.
Precisely. First of all, Michael Baden never met or examined Tawana Brawley. What he said was that the DA had certain people saying they saw Tawana jumping around in the bag, hopping around in the bag, doing all sorts of stuff. Michael Baden, said in effect, if she was doing that, then the paramedic’s report has to be bogus. She could not have been unconscious, her pupils could not have been dilated.

He just discounted the paramedic’s report?
That’s right. So now we have to say to ourselves, this fifteen-year-old girl concocted her story and got some paramedics to go along with her. Then she goes to St. Francis Hospital where her blood pressure was nowhere near normal. And she also would have had to pay the nurses to enter into the medical record her condition. She must have paid them BIG money to enter false information into medical records because falsifying medical records is a state offense for which you will do time. So she’s got the nurses who have never seen her before, they’re willing to falsify the records to say she’s ill, she’s all messed up, and then she’s going to allege that the man she sees in the newspaper (Harry Crist) is the man that initially confronted and assaulted her. She’s just going to make that up, not knowing where the man might have been, he may have been with the President of the United States the night she claims that she was raped.
Then you have Steven Pagones, saying out of his own mouth that he was with Harry Crist on this date and that date. Well if you were with him on this date and that date, then dammit you had to be involved in the rape. That’s how he brings attention to himself.

When Pagones said he was with Harry Crist, was he speaking in regard to the so-called suicide, or to the rape?
The rape. He says that he went with Harry, Branson, and Patterson to Danbury, the day that Tawana was found. He was using Harry Crist as his alibi because Harry’s a dead man. If you’re using a dead man, there’s no one to refute your alibi.

Did Pagones’ statement come before or after Tawana had identified Harry Crist?
I think it’s after. Look, to this date, we don’t know who wrote the Grand Jury Report. Why would you bring in Michael Baden to testify to the medical evidence? Did they bring in the ambulance driver, and the paramedics that were there? The nurses came into the trial, ten years later, and said that she was faking.

This contradicts what is in the record.
Sure, contradicts the record. The record was never presented.

So instead of presenting the record itself, they presented Baden’s report on the record.
Right. The Grand Jury is handed this bag of goodies which they accept as truth and the Grand Jury reports no true bill. Then the word is put out that Pagones is cleared. See the White man is good at perpetuating his myths. Ask the Seminole, ask the Apache.

White man speaks with forked tongue?
If the shoe fits…Look, Pagones had none of his alibi witnesses come in. Not even his wife came in to say, “Yes, I took that money to the bank to make a deposit. His wife showed up the last four days of the trial. His own father who he said he was with Thanksgiving night at a get-together at the father’s place, doesn’t come and take the stand to swear that they were together.

So what happens now?
It took thirty years to finally get Beckworth for murdering Medgar Evers. The last DD5 has not been turned in on this case. There is a level of persistence that goes with the search for truth. Myrlie Evers had to continue her search for justice, despite the findings of juries…well, the last word is not in yet here either. Truth crushed to earth will rise. There has not yet been an investigation in this matter. The media wants to push the facts out of the picture, but this trial does not exonerate Pagones. We have yet to see the end of this case.

(In 1998, Steven Pagones, who was the county prosecutor at the time, won a defamation suit against Sharpton, Brawley and Brawley’s attorneys. They had accused Pagones of being among Brawley’s attackers.)