The recent headline in the New York Times read “Cosby is Charged with Sex Assault in Criminal Case.” The headline in the Wall Street Journal reads “Cosby Charged with Assault.” No white newspaper in the United States reported, in 1998: that a Dutchess County jury found ADA Steven Pagones was one of Tawana Brawley’s “attackers.”
There is a difference between a civil judgment and a criminal accusation. In a criminal accusation, an accused is presumed innocent. On the other hand, a civil judgment denotes that Pagones is not only civilly liable to Tawana Brawley for monetary and punitive damages but also that probable cause exists for his arrest and prosecution on rape charges.
California v. O.J. Simpson in 1995 was an unsuccessful criminal prosecution. His wife’s estate was not deterred. The estate initiated a successful wrongful death action. Afterwards, Nevada entrapped O.J. The moral of this lesson is that “if you fail — try again.” O.J. is now doing time in a Nevada prison.
The frame of reference for any criminal prosecution in Pennsylvania v. Cosby is a comparative analysis of Bill Cosby and Steven Pagones. This analysis inevitably turns on the legal status of black women in general and Tawana Brawley in particular. A decision by the Missouri Supreme Court in Celia A. Slave is instructive.
The racially-motivated and gender-based attack on Tawana Brawley was a class action as that term is defined in Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. (60 U.S.) 393 (1857). This sexual assault was not only an attack on a black female but also an attack on black manhood. The question is whether the reactions of black men and white men are similar, synonymous or synergistic.
In February 1988 and after Bill Cosby had posted a reward for Steven Pagones et. al., Rev. Al Sharpton would embrace Cosby in a Cosby-arranged press conference. This embrace was memorialized on the front page of the Daily News. Cosby would later facilitate the admission of Sharpton’s oldest daughter into Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater.
Will Sharpton, on this Sunday, discuss his relationship and friendship with Cosby and any coincidence between Cosby seeking ownership of NBC-TV and Sharpton’s subsequent employment with MSNBC-TV? Is there any media plan for Sharpton to defend Cosby against this criminal prosecution?
Because of infectious censorship, the real explanation and motivation for the stale prosecution in Pennsylvania v. Cosby will have to wait until the legal and political workshop on Saturday, January 9, 2016 at the Cotton Club in Harlem. This venue will allow Maddox to go full throttle. This legal education will prepare parents to speak both “legalese” and “military science,” to circumvent another “Central Park 7.”
POWs and “slaves” have no right of access to the information highway. Prisons without walls and plantations without bloodhounds are confusing to descendants of enslaved Africans. These concentration camps, on the other hand, are not confusing to law enforcement agents.
The lack of ethics coupled with a standing army give rise to “war zones” in the United States. Unarmed combatants are not “refugees.” Any disarmament of blacks will not provide peace between the black community and any standing army. This is a complex problem. An understanding of “legalese” and “military science” is necessary to solve it.
For 2016, the resolve of each and every black activist in the United States should be to eradicate the philosophy of white supremacy as it is defined in Dred Scott. States’ rights trumped federalism in 2015. The North and South have merged to make this philosophy a formidable challenge.
We seized the White House in 2009. This was a Pyrrhic victory. Blacks must learn “legalese” and “military science” in 2016 to achieve HELP. Otherwise, Claude McKay’s poetic words will become a reality. No animal would ever suffer the fate of Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, Walter Scott, Sandra Band, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray et. al. at the hands of the state. They enjoy animal rights.
About Attorney Alton Maddox: Alton Henry Maddox, Jr. (born 1945) is a lawyer who was involved in several highly publicized cases in the 1980s before his law license was indefinitely suspended in 1990 by the New York State Supreme Court. Maddox represented several proven and alleged crime victims including the family of Michael Stewart, a Brooklyn man who died while in custody of the New York City Transit Police. Six officers were indicted for the death; all were found not guilty. Rudy Giuliani, then US Attorney in Manhattan, found insufficient evidence to warrant a federal grand jury investigation. A Metropolitan Transportation Authority report later faulted police for use of excessive force.
He was the attorney for Cedric Sandiford and the family of manslaughter victim Michael Griffith in the Howard Beach incident. Maddox and other lawyers demanded a special prosecutor be appointed to the case, and the request was eventually granted. Maddox accused the New York City Police Department and Commissioner Benjamin Ward of a cover-up.
He represented Tawana Brawley during the period of her rape allegations. Maddox and two other Brawley advisers accused Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones of abducting and raping Brawley. A grand jury exonerated Pagones and suggested that Brawley had concocted a hoax. Pagones sued Brawley and the three advisers for $395 million for twenty two alleged defamatory statements. A jury awarded Pagones a total of $345,000 in damages, with Maddox being found liable for $95,000 for two defamatory statements.
