Mother in Brawley Case Ordered Jailed

A judge Monday held the mother of Tawana Brawley in criminal contempt of court and ordered her to serve 30 days in jail for defying the subpoena of a special grand jury investigating the claim that her daughter was kidnaped and raped by six white men, including an assailant with a badge.

After a rancorous hearing during which charges of racism repeatedly were raised by lawyers for the black teen-ager’s mother, State Supreme Court Justice Angelo J. Ingrassia ruled that Glenda Brawley--who took part in a demonstration on the street outside but failed to appear in court--had violated the subpoena.

“The court has no other alternative” than to find Glenda Brawley in criminal contempt, Ingrassia said. “The court finds the grand jury subpoena issued was a lawful mandate of this court.”

Earlier, Alton H. Maddox Jr., one of Glenda Brawley’s lawyers, had pledged that his client was prepared to “submit her body” to incarceration.

But state Atty. Gen. Robert Abrams, who is serving as a special prosecutor in the racially sensitive case, asked local sheriffs to delay arresting Glenda Brawley until Wednesday, when the grand jury is scheduled to meet again.

‘Disastrous Advice’

“This is a truly sad and unfortunate day,” Abrams said. “I think Glenda Brawley received disastrous advice from her lawyers. They utterly failed to defend her.”

Standing in the lobby of the red brick courthouse with scores of reporters crowded around him, Abrams urged Brawley to purge her contempt citation. The prosecutor said that after Brawley is arrested on Wednesday she would be brought to court so the judge could give her the opportunity to avoid jail.

“Let’s hope over the next 24 hours, rationality and sanity prevail,” Abrams added. “Let’s hope we don’t have the jailing of the mother of a possible victim.”

Abrams admitted, however, that without the cooperation of Brawley and her daughter, his investigation is in serious trouble.

The case has won national attention. After she was missing for four days last November, Tawana Brawley was found near the apartment her family had previously occupied with canine feces and racial epithets smeared on her body. But investigations by police, the FBI and prosecutors have cast some doubt on her story.

Throughout the three-hour hearing Monday in this courthouse 90 miles north of New York City, Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, representing Brawley’s mother, sought to cast the hearing in political terms and charged that there is racism in the criminal justice system.

‘Not a Political Forum’

And firmly, sometimes with humor, after listening to the lawyer’s charges, Justice Ingrassia turned aside their argument. “This is not a political forum. This is not a political arena,” he told the defense lawyers.

“The only issue I am here to decide, was there a lawful mandate served on Glenda Brawley? Did she disobey that lawful mandate?”

Brawley’s lawyers had subpoenaed New York’s Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. But Ingrassia denied the subpoena.

“I urge you to search your heart and mind and soul,” Maddox pleaded with the judge. “Four hundred years of oppression ride on this case.”

But Ingrassia saw the hearing in far narrower terms. “It is a very unpleasant task to preside over a matter like this,” he said. “ . . . This case can only deal with evidence.”

The bitterness of Brawley’s lawyers was evident throughout the hearing. At one point Mason glanced in the direction of Abrams, who was seated quietly at a table across the courtroom from him. “Big Bob Abrams is going to put Glenda Brawley in jail,” he taunted.

Ingrassia said that he was determined to keep the hearing to the subpoena issue.

“I have not heard any factual issues raised based on all the allegations to reverse the order to show cause,” he said, previewing his decision to hold Glenda Brawley in criminal contempt, order her to jail and fine her $250.

Demonstrators Outside Court

The scene on the street outside the courthouse testified to the controversy of the case. Hundreds of townspeople gathered on the sidewalk across from the court building to watch about 300 demonstrators march on Brawley’s behalf. When reporters entered the building they were screened carefully and searched.

“No court in this state is going to rule in favor of Glenda Brawley,” Maddox charged. “It is not going to happen. I am not going to hallucinate otherwise. No judge in the state is going to side with us.”

“I don’t believe we have any chance,” he added. “I rest my case.”