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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

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.''


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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.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/25/nyregi...o-the-past.html