By// Deanna Martin-Osuagwu
Tawana Brawley is back in the headlines. The woman, who caused a media frenzy in the ’80s when the then 15-year-old claimed to have been raped by White men in upstate New York, was recently ordered to pay more than $430,000 in defamation damages.
Steven Pagones, one of the three men who were accused of the crime, filed the lawsuit and won after
he was cleared of the rape charges in 1988. While Brawley’s spokesman Rev. Al Sharpton and attorneys paid within two years, the now 40-year-old has failed to do so. According to Pagones’ lawyer Garry Bolnick, Brawley has used aliases and relocated to different towns over the years, which made it difficult to track her down. “She has been avoiding us, from my perspective,” he explains. “She stayed out of the public eye.”
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