The Nation - News from June 17, 1988

A former aide to the Rev. Al Sharpton, a key backer of Tawana Brawley, appeared before a grand jury in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where he was expected to repeat his contention that the 16-year-old black girl’s story of being gang-raped by white men is filled with lies and fraud. New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said that if Perry J. McKinnon’s story is true, the principals in the bizarre case “should be vigorously prosecuted.” McKinnon, 39, appeared a day after he said he quit the Brawley camp because he believed her story was “a pack of lies,” embellished by Sharpton and the girl’s lawyers, Alton H. Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason. When Brawley was found near her family’s apartment in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., last Nov. 28, her hair had been clipped and racial epithets had been written on her body.