NEW YORK (AP) - Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates
seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the governor's
mansion.
The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged over the past decade as perhaps the
nation's most prominent civil rights leader, a status that was demonstrated
again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut
down six of Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.
But he still carries baggage from his early days as a fire-breathing
agitator: Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate that
Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in overdue taxes and
associated penalties.
Now the U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe that an
undeterred Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that civil rights
figures have come to expect from the government.
"Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop," he told the AP. "I
think that that is why they try to intimidate us."
Over the past year, Sharpton's lawyers and the staff of his nonprofit group,
the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the federal government
over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The group has also been trying to
pay off tens of thousands of dollars it owes for failing to properly maintain
workers compensation and unemployment insurance.
Charlie King, the organization's interim executive director, said both
Sharpton and the group he leads were unprepared for their rise in stature in
recent years and had trouble dealing with big jumps in donations and income.
"The infrastructure was trying to keep up with that pace, and it was not a
perfect fit," he told the AP on Friday. "The National Action Network may not
have been perfect, but nothing was going on that was untoward."
He said the organization has new accountants and a new administrative team,
and the group recently finally filed long-overdue tax returns.
Sharpton's own debts include $365,558 owed in New York City income tax and
$931,397 in unpaid federal income tax, according to a lien filed by the Internal
Revenue Service last spring. His for-profit company, Rev. Al Communications,
owes the state another $175,962 in delinquent taxes.
As for Sharpton's personal tax debt, King said Sharpton has started paying
it off but contends that faulty record-keeping by the National Action Network
led the government to overestimate his tax liability.
Tax headaches are nothing new for Sharpton. The 53-year-old minister has
been assailed over his career for running up big tax debts and failing to abide
by rules governing his charities and election committees. He is perpetually
being sued for failing to pay his bills.
In December, Sharpton revealed that as many as 10 of his associates had
received grand jury subpoenas. A person familiar with the investigation told the
AP that the FBI and IRS are probing whether Sharpton or his organization
committed tax crimes or violations related to his 2004 presidential campaign,
during which he was forced to return public matching funds for breaking
fundraising rules.
If any of this worries Sharpton, you'd never know it. He is pressing ahead
with his latest campaign -- an effort to persuade the Justice Department to
bring civil rights charges against New York City police detectives who fired 50
shots and killed an unarmed groom as he left his bachelor party.
Over the past few weeks, Sharpton has kept a high profile, promising to lead
weekly demonstrations until new charges are brought against police detectives
acquitted of manslaughter April 25 in the November 2006 death of Sean Bell.
"He is as focused as ever," said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, a Queens Democrat
who has also rallied for police reforms since the Bell case. "He is probably
more effective now than he was in the past, than he has ever been."
Sharpton was arrested and spent a few hours in jail Wednesday for being
among the marchers who blocked the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the verdict.
On Thursday, Sharpton said he may soon add another cause -- the case of
three shooting suspects who appeared to have been beaten and kicked by police
during an arrest in Philadelphia.
Sharpton has been investigated before, and always walked away clean.
In 1990, he was acquitted of tax fraud and charges that he stole from one of
his charities. He followed that up with what was essentially another victory in
a tax case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to file a state
return.
In the latest probe, the official overseeing the investigation is U.S.
Attorney Benton Campbell -- the same Brooklyn-based prosecutor whom Sharpton is
urging to file criminal charges in the Bell shooting. Campbell's office has said
it is reviewing the case but declined to comment further.
Sharpton's reputation has undergone a remarkable renaissance since the
Tawana Brawley days in 1987, when he was accused of helping create a hoax in
which the 15-year-old girl claimed she had been kidnapped and raped by a gang of
whites that included a police officer and a prosecutor. A grand jury concluded
that Brawley made the story up.
Since the late 1990s, his civil rights group has grown from a small outfit,
with a few hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue, to an organization that
now routinely takes in $1 million to $2 million per year, thanks partly to
corporate support.
Donors have included beer giant Anheuser-Busch, which gave more than
$100,000 last year, and Forest City Ratner, a real estate development company
that courted black leaders for support of a plan to build an NBA arena in
Brooklyn. PepsiCo, for several years, gave Sharpton a compensated position on
one of its advisory boards.
The group also enjoys financial support from the state's top politicians.
New York Gov. David Paterson has transferred at least $28,000 from his own
re-election committee to the National Action Network since 2001. Rep. Charles
Rangel, a top Democrat in Congress, has been another major backer, giving at
least $83,000. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has given $10,000.
"Everybody who runs for office in the Democratic Party wants to meet with
him," said former Mayor Ed Koch, who once battled Sharpton but now calls him a
friend and a "bona fide leader."
Koch said Sharpton's past will always be an issue with some whites, and he
disagreed with the decision to engage in civil disobedience over the Bell case.
But the former mayor believes the respect Sharpton enjoys among blacks is well
earned.
"He is willing to go to jail for them," Koch said. "And he is there when
they need him."
AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.
(This version SUBS 7th graf to correct that Charlie, sted Charles, is name
of organization's interim executive director.)
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