Steven Pagones

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Steven Pagones was an Assistant District Attorney in Dutchess County, New York who was falsely accused in 1987 by Tawana Brawley and Al Sharpton of raping Brawley. A grand jury investigation found that Pagones had nothing to do Brawley's allegations. Evidence indicated that there had not even been any attack on Brawley and that she had fabricated the entire story.

On July 13, 1998, after an eight-month-long trial, a jury found that Sharpton, Alton H. Maddox and lawyer C. Vernon Mason had defamed Pagones. On July 29, 1998 the jury awarded Pagones $345,000 in damages. Sharpton was found liable for $65,000 of the total damages, Maddox for $95,000 and Mason for $185,000. Sharpton refused to apologize to Pagones and will not do so even to this day.

Pagones went on to become an Assistant State Attorney General.