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Brawleys Want Tawana’s Case Re-Opened
From those champions of justice at the Associated Press:
Kin want infamous NYC rape case reopened
NEW YORK - Twenty years after her allegations of a racially charged rape became a national flashpoint, Tawana Brawley’s mother and stepfather want to reopen the case, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Glenda Brawley and Ralph King want to press Gov. Eliot Spitzer and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to re-examine the November 1987 incident, which a state grand jury ultimately concluded was a hoax, the Daily News reported.
“New York State owes my daughter. They owe her the truth,” said Glenda Brawley. She reiterated her stance that her daughter was indeed raped by a group of white men who smeared her with feces and scrawled racial epithets on her body.
Representatives for Spitzer and Cuomo did not immediately respond to telephone and e-mail messages early Saturday.
Brawley was 15 when she went missing for four days from her home in Wappingers Falls, about 75 miles north of New York City. After being found, she made the shocking allegation that she had been abducted and raped by six white law enforcement officials.
The case quickly made headlines and drew the attention of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who became an outspoken advocate for the teen.
But a special state grand jury found evidence Brawley had fabricated her story. A former Dutchess County prosecutor who had been implicated in the case later sued Brawley, Sharpton and other Brawley advisers for defamation, winning a $345,000 judgment against the advisers and a $185,000 judgment against Brawley.
A spokeswoman for Sharpton, who was held liable for $65,000 in the case, did not immediately respond to an e-mail message early Sunday. The former prosecutor’s lawyer did not immediately return a telephone message.
Brawley has changed her name and become a nurse, the Daily News reported.
The family is right. The case should be re-opened.
And Ms. Brawley, her family and Messrs. Sharpton, Maddox and Mason should all get some jail time.
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