Tawana Brawley Case Revisited

Tawana Brawley's Parents Want to Re-open Case

I recall back in November, 1987 while I was in college, some horrific allegations surfaced about an African-American girl, Tawana Brawley, who claimed that she was kidnapped and raped by a group of white police officers in Wappinger Falls, New York. Well, her mother, Glenda Brawley and stepfather, Ralph King, now want the state to reinvestigate the case, exactly 20 years later. They want to ask Governor Eliot Spitzer and Attorney General Cuomo to re-open the case. A special state grand jury had concluded back in 1988 that the incident was fabricated by the then 15-year old Tawana Brawley.

The attorney general's office has said that it will review a request for amnesty for Glenda Brawley so that she can commemorate the 20^th anniversary of her daughter's case in New York without being arrested. There is a fugitive warrant out in New York for her arrest dating back to her refusal to testify in the 1998 Dutchess County grand jury trial, which ultimately determined that there was no evidence her daughter, was raped. She has been living out of state ever since the incident. Alton Maddox Jr., her now disbarred lawyer, had sent a letter to Cuomo requesting the amnesty because his organization, United African Movement, is holding a commemoration of the events on November 28.