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A 19-Year-Old F.B.I. Videotape Keeps Pulling Sharpton Back to the Past
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and SUSAN SAULNY
Published: July 25, 2002
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The Rev. Al Sharpton once said he was created with no reverse in his transmission, but if so, he has shown he can brake suddenly and make U-turns.
In the latest test of his adroitness, Mr. Sharpton has been responding to a secretly recorded 1983 F.B.I. videotape, included in an HBO report this week, that depicts him mostly listening but sometimes responding without commitment to an undercover agent masquerading as a Latin American drug lord offering to sell him kilos of cocaine.
Yesterday, Mr. Sharpton, 46, announced at State Supreme Court in Manhattan that he had filed a $1 billion lawsuit against HBO and its parent company, AOL Time Warner, contending that he had been smeared by ''dirty tricks'' intended to derail his campaign for the presidency. Also named as defendants were the HBO show, ''Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel;'' the reporter, Bernard Goldberg; and Michael Franzese, a former Colombo family Mafia captain who became a government informant.
''They may think they have given me a stumbling block,'' Mr. Sharpton said on the courthouse steps, entering the building and then returning. ''They will see it turned into a steppingstone.''
He contended that the segment of three and a half minutes shown nationally Tuesday night distorted the encounter and omitted material, including a second tape, that made it clear he would have nothing to do with drugs.
He also questioned why the 19-year-old tape, written about in the 1980's, had now reappeared. ''For whom and for what?'' he demanded.
A spokesman for HBO, Ray Stallone, called the lawsuit ''so silly that it is unworthy of comment.''
He called the tape ''an integral part of the story we presented'' and said Mr. Sharpton's response was included in its report. As for his statement that there was a second and exculpatory videotape, Mr. Stallone said, ''We indicated to him that we would welcome the chance to see it.''
It was hardly the first time that the tape and others have made trouble for Mr. Sharpton.
Just 10 years ago this summer, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, looking into reports of corruption in boxing, played audio and videotapes growing out of a 1980 F.B.I. investigation called Crown Royal.
On one of the tapes, presented by a former F.B.I. agent, Joseph A. Spinelli, who was then the New York State inspector general under Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mr. Sharpton is shown meeting with the undercover agent -- a supposed drug kingpin named Victor Quintana -- and a reputed mobster, Danny Pagano, discussing ways of approaching the boxing promoter Don King to arrange bouts and launder money.
On the tape, Mr. Sharpton tells the agent that he would get a ''fair deal'' from Mr. King because of Mr. Pagano's underworld connections.
At the same Senate hearing, Mr. Franzese, who had been caught in an F.B.I. sting and ended up cooperating with the government, testified that he had used Mr. Sharpton to get close to Mr. King and he added: ''I knew Sharpton and was aware that he was associated with people in the Genovese family, in particular with family soldier Danny Pagano.''
Mr. Franzese also testified that Mr. Sharpton had arranged a meeting with him on Jan. 12, 1983, in Mr. King's Manhattan office where Mr. Franzese reported that his efforts had been blessed by mob bosses in Cleveland.
At the time, Mr. Sharpton denied that he consorted with mobsters, saying he knew nothing of the backgrounds of those he met with. He said he had not been charged with any crime and called allegations from people like Mr. Franzese ''fabrications.''
Over the years, Mr. Spinelli has often cited Mr. Sharpton's involvement in his boxing investigation and in 1991, as inspector general, wrote an article in Sports Illustrated recounting it in detail. He said the F.B.I. case was dropped after a Korean boxer died in a title bout and the bureau feared that it was too risky for the F.B.I. to appear to be involved in promoting fights.
Mr. Spinelli, who now works at the accounting firm KPMG, did not return calls yesterday.
The existence of the other 1983 videotape showing Mr. Sharpton listening to the undercover agent offering cocaine and saying at one point ''I hear you'' was disclosed in articles in Newsday several years later. Law enforcement officials later told The New York Times that while Mr. Sharpton could not be prosecuted for what he said on the tape, they had bluffed him shortly after the tape was made into believing that he faced charges and so persuaded him to become a federal informant. They said he provided information about meetings held in the basement of Danny Pagano's father, Joseph, also reputed to be a mobster, information that led to the planting of a court-authorized listening device there. Joseph Pagano died before any charges were filed.
At the time of the Newsday article, Mr. Sharpton denied as ''ludicrous'' any statement that he had become an F.B.I. informant, but said that he had tapped his own phone to gather information on neighborhood drug dealers.
Andrew J. Maloney, who was serving as the United States attorney in Brooklyn, recalled yesterday that after that episode, Mr. Sharpton, facing state charges of tax evasion -- he was acquitted -- had visited Mr. Maloney's office to offer to provide certain information that Mr. Maloney yesterday declined to detail.
Newsday reported Mr. Sharpton's offer at the time. Mr. Sharpton said it concerned efforts to curb crack trafficking. Prosecutors, however, disagreed and said the information involved activities of an unidentified black leader.
At the time, The Times asked Mr. Sharpton whether he would instruct Mr. Maloney to disclose his conversations with the office. Mr. Sharpton said he would. Then he sent a note voiding his authorization.
Photos: At left, the Rev. Al Sharpton was greeted by a supporter after suing HBO and AOL Time Warner over HBO's broadcast of a 1983 F.B.I. tape in which an undercover agent offered Mr. Sharpton a drug deal. Above, Mr. Sharpton with the boxing promoter Don King, right, in 1997. The F.B.I. had taped him in an investigation of boxing. (Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times); (Michael E. Palmer for The New York Times)
