REV. AL SHARPTON TELLS THE REST OF THE STORY

ast Saturday, addressing a packed house at his headquarters in Harlem as well as his radio audience for "Live from the House of Justice," Rev. Al Sharpton discussed the videotape of him aired the previous Tuesday night on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel." In response, Sharpton has filed a $1 billion defamation suit against HBO.

Rev. Sharpton simply laid out the facts of what had occurred. Twenty-some years ago, when he was in the music industry, a man named Michael Franzese (who, unbeknownst to Sharpton had been caught in an FBI sting and was then cooperating with the government in their investigation into whether boxing promoter Don King had ties with organized crime) was brought to Sharpton by a friend also in the record business. Franzese said he wanted to get into boxing and wished to meet with Don King. In his line of work, Sharpton frequently set up meetings between people, so he arranged it.

At the meeting, Franzese brought with him an undercover agent, Victor Quitana, who was posing as a Latin American businessman. At a certain point, Quitana stopped talking about boxing and started talking about an illegal drug deal, trying, as they found out later, to entrap them into dealing.

Rev. Sharpton explained to his audience that when Quitana started talking about drugs, he said to himself, "But wait a minute; where's this coming from?" And he thought about his situation--there he was, sitting in an office with a man who had 6 or 7 officers with him, and God knows who else in the other 4 or 5 rooms. And he thought to himself, "If I say something smart, how am I getting out of here?"

Rev. Sharpton also explained why he didn't go right to the police with what happened. He was in the middle of fighting the then-mayor Ed Koch's administration, and he'd been leading marches against the police. He knew that if he ran to the police, they wouldn't believe him. And he said to his listeners, "You've got to remember that at the time, the mayor was calling me Al Charlatan instead of Al Sharpton. So rather than come to them, my thinking was 'Let me just get on out of here!'"

Even before the story was shown, Rev. Sharpton had contacted HBO and insisted that, for the sake of truth, the program air a second tape that clearly showed them turning down Quitana's proposed drug deal in no uncertain terms. But HBO continues to say there are no additional tapes. Stated Sharpton, "Well, I went into my archives last night and found an article dated August 14, 1992 titled 'Rev. Al: Politics Behind Mob Hearing.'" He held up for all to see the rather yellowed page from the New York Post. It was an article of him talking about how 10 years earlier, before a Senate Subcommittee; a tape had been played of the president of the record company, an undercover agent and himself. "Now, clearly that wasn't the tape they showed on HBO because there was no president of the record company in it," said Sharpton. "If there was no other tape, not only am I hallucinating, but the entire Senate was hallucinating 10 years ago, and the New York Post, who loves me, in fact wrote the article to help me out!"

He asked why was it that he was able to go and find one of the articles clearly proving there are other tapes; yet, all the media in New York couldn't find any?

Rev. Sharpton brought out a very important point. All this was happening 3 weeks after Michael Jackson came to NAN and called the music industry "devils." "This is about me attacking the music industry and the film industry," Sharpton said. "They are the same gangsters that get protection and are able to use law enforcement tapes to try to discredit someone years later."

Rev. Sharpton also said that what we've got here is an attempt to avoid dealing with issues such as the deficit, the off-shore tax havens, and police brutality. "This is all to divert attention from the issues that I'm making national as I consider a presidential campaign," stated Sharpton. And he announced that in the next 60 days he will embark on a 20-city barnstorming tour in his exploration of a run for president. "There is no way I will be intimidated into not pursuing this," he said.

One of the main features of Sharpton's lawsuit against HBO is the insistence that all of the tapes of him be shown, and he continued, "The difference between me and everybody else running for President is I'm the only one demanding they bring everything out in the open!"

He said Dick Cheney needs to tell them to come on with the tapes they've got of him meeting 6 times with Enron. Cheney is fighting the US government and the Senate saying he doesn't want to discuss these meetings. And George W. Bush made $23 million on a Texas Ranger deal but he, too, says he doesn't want to discuss it. Declared Sharpton, "Everybody else made deals, made money on them and they aren't discussing anything. But they say a guy offered me a deal, which I didn't take, and then they want to ask me all kinds of questions."

Rev. Sharpton also spoke about the fact that these tapes show himself as a young man at a crossroad of life, with every materialistic reason to cut a drug deal, but choosing not to. He said that if HBO won't run the second tape, he's going to take it with him and show it everywhere on tour because, "I want America to see where you can start and where you can go. Somewhere along the line that boy on the tape took that hat off and put that cigar down and went to Howard Beach. Run the tape on that." And he spoke of going to Bensonhurst, to Wappinger's Falls to defend Tawana Brawley, to LA for Rodney King, and of being there for Abner Louima when he was taken into a police precinct 12 blocks from the Sharptons' house to be sodomized and raped, and of going to Vieques and the Middle East. "Keep running the tape on all of that," he said, "and on how, in the middle of Brooklyn, in what they call a hard core community, Kathy and I kept the family together and raised 2 daughters." The crowd leapt to its feet as he went on, "When you finish running all my tapes, run all of Bush's and Cheney's, and then see who's fit to be president of the United States!"

Rev. Sharpton concluded his statement by saying, "Every so many years they come with their attacks. It's time to use these things to open up America and see what's really happening with law enforcement, TIPS, homeland security, COINTELPRO--what is the real deal? Don't just show us the Sharpton tapes; show us everybody’s tapes!"

Many politicians, community activists and individuals such as Jonas Louima, Abner Louima's brother, had come unbidden to the rally to show their support. Several told of their own ordeals that related to Rev. Sharpton's. There were Eric Adams of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, Charles Billups, Chairperson of the Grand Council of the Guardians, as well as Iris Baez, mother of Anthony Baez who was murdered by the police; Randy Credico, Director or the William Moses Kunstler fund for racial justice; and Regina Stevens, with Mothers of the Disappeared. Among the politicians were New York State Assemblymen Roger Green, Keith Wright, and Jose Rivera along with Roberto Ramirez, the former Bronx County Leader, and Council Members Jose Serrano, Jr., Larry Seabrook, and James Davis.

One wonders if the media will show that tape.

Donna Lamb can be reached at dlamb@gis.net.