Former Aide to Tawana Brawley Adviser Labels Teen-Ager’s Charges ‘Pack of Lies’

A former top aide to the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of Tawana Brawley’s closest confidants, charged Wednesday the teen-ager’s story “is a pack of lies” and said he was informed by other teens that she attended two parties during the four days she alleged she was kidnaped and raped by six white men.

Perry J. McKinnon, a former security guard, said he told this to Sharpton and the Brawley family’s lawyers and it was ignored. McKinnon accused Brawley’s advisers of using the 16-year-old girl to build a political movement and to incite rioting during the summer in New York. He said Brawley’s mother had told him that she had seen evidence her daughter had been in an apartment the family had recently vacated during the time she was reported missing.

Both New York State Atty. Gen. Robert Abrams, the special prosecutor investigating Brawley’s claims of cover-up and rape, and U. S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani appeared to give credence to McKinnon’s charges.

“It is fair to say because his statements are so forthright and so detailed, it is a matter we will follow up on,” the federal prosecutor said.

At a late afternoon news conference, Abrams labeled McKinnon’s charges “explosive and astounding.” He said that if proven, it would mean Brawley’s advisers “have been consciously perpetrating a hoax.”

The hoax, the attorney general added, would not only be on the black community, but on all the people of New York.

‘Indictment of Credibility’

Abrams, who has been frustrated for months in his attempt to get to the bottom of the Brawley case, charged McKinnon’s accusations, which were made to WCBS-TV and the New York Daily News, amounted to “an indictment of the credibility” of Brawley’s lawyers.

The special prosecutor subpoenaed McKinnon to begin testifying today before a special state grand jury looking into Brawley’s accusations.

In the state capital of Albany, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo urged that Brawley’s mother, Glenda, who has taken refuge in a church to avoid going to jail for 30 days for defying a grand jury subpoena, be arrested. The governor said he found McKinnon’s charges “interesting” and confirmed that McKinnon had represented Sharpton in meetings with members of the governor’s staff.

“The Tawana Brawley story may be that there is no Tawana Brawley story,” McKinnon charged in the WCBS-TV interview. “The real story is the political agenda of Sharpton, Maddox and Mason.”

McKinnon said that C. Vernon Mason and Alton H. Maddox Jr., Brawley’s lawyers, as far back as January had told him they were conducting the case in a political context.

“This case is not about Tawana,” McKinnon charged. “This whole situation is not about Tawana Brawley. This whole situation is about Mason, Maddox and Sharpton sort of taking over the town, so to speak.”

Brawley’s advisers quickly denounced McKinnon.

“This is a pack of lies,” Sharpton replied.

“Perry McKinnon is a bald-faced liar, a desperate man,” added Maddox.

Cite Conditions

Brawley’s lawyers said the teen-ager would appear before a grand jury if another prosecutor were appointed and on the condition the people she named as her assailants were put in jail by sundown. Brawley claims she was attacked by a half dozen white men, including an assailant with a badge, last November. When she was found not far from her family’s former apartment in Wappingers Falls, N. Y., last Nov. 28, her hair had been clipped and racial epithets were written on her body. She and her mother have refused to cooperate with authorities, claiming the investigation is a cover-up and is racially prejudiced against them because they are black.

McKinnon, who was a close aide to Sharpton during the first five months of the Brawley case, said he broke with the Brooklyn preacher without a pulpit who has close contacts with a number of prominent figures in the record and boxing businesses, because he increasingly realized he was being caught up in lies.

“I am not going on with a lie,” he said. “I am not going on with fraud. I am not misleading the people.”

McKinnon raised questions about what has been happening to contributions to the Brawley cause. He said in just one day he witnessed $4,300 in donations from concerned citizens.

McKinnon said that as early as January he had doubts about Brawley’s story, and after interviewing the teen-ager’s mother, he had expressed his doubts to Maddox during a car ride from Wappingers Falls to New York City.

“I said something is wrong with the case,” McKinnon told WCBS-TV. “I am a detective and I am not seeing anything saying she was raped,” he said he related to Maddox.

“I think there is something wrong with this,” McKinnon said he told the lawyer. “I warned him. He said, ‘I am interested in this politically. I don’t care about any facts.’ I thought it was nuts.”

Offers to Investigate

McKinnon said at this point he offered to investigate Brawley’s story and Sharpton agreed, stating: “I don’t want to get caught on a limb.”

“But Maddox said, ‘Forget it,’ ” McKinnon charged.

McKinnon is a former director of security at St. Mary’s Hospital in Brooklyn. He previously served as a police officer and private detective in Georgia. Sharpton said Wednesday he and McKinnon had engaged in discussions about forming a private security business.

The former Sharpton aide said the preacher was shocked when Maddox at a news conference accused assistant Dutchess County prosecutor Steven A. Pagones of being one of Brawley’s attackers.

“There was no evidence discussed that Pagones had taken part in this,” McKinnon said. “The two lawyers and Sharpton were making it up as they went along.”

McKinnon said he went to Newburgh, N. Y., where Brawley’s aunt had initially reported her missing to police. He said other teen-agers had told him that Brawley attended two parties during the time she alleged she had been kidnaped.

Earlier this month, a state Supreme Court justice in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., found Glenda Brawley guilty of contempt of court for ignoring the subpoena of the grand jury investigating her daughter’s claims. She has since taken refuge in black churches in New York City, and authorities have been reluctant to enter the churches to arrest her.