The Nation - News from Sept. 28, 1988

A key adviser to Tawana Brawley dismissed as a “hoax” a published report saying a grand jury meeting in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., believes the Upstate New York black teen-ager’s story of abduction and rape by white men is a fabrication. The adviser, the Rev. Al Sharpton, lashed out at the New York Times for publishing the grand jury’s purported conclusions. “The leak to the Times is a hoax,” the controversial Brooklyn preacher said. “It is nothing but a whole series of reckless speculations by someone who has not backed it up by one iota of fact,” Sharpton said of the report. The New York Times reported that the secret grand jury reviewed more than 100 witnesses’ testimony, confidential medical and police reports and secretly taped telephone calls and concluded that the Wappingers Falls 16-year-old concocted the story.