It's been 25 years since Tawana Brawley first became a household name after making national headlines for a high-profile rape case that turned out to be a hoax, back in 1987. Now Brawley is making payments to the former New York prosecutor that she falsely accused of participating in a gang rape against her.
A Virginia court, where Brawley now lives under various assumed names and works as a nurse, ordered her employer to garnish $3,764.61 from six months' worth of her wages to be paid to former NY cop Steven Pagones, reports the New York Post. In total, she owes $431,000 more.
The saga began in November 1987, when Brawley was 15 years old and was found in a trash bag covered in racial slurs written on her in feces. She told police that six white men had abducted, brutalized, and raped her for four days. Her representatives, including Al Sharpton, accused Pagones, then a prosecutor in Dutchess County, New York, of being one of Brawley's attackers. However, one year later a grand jury determined that Brawley had fabricated the story.
In 1998 Pagones won a defamation suit from Sharpton and two of Brawley's other advisers, who were ordered to pay over $350,000 in damages. Brawley was originally ordered to pay $190,000 at 9 percent annual interest.
Pagones' attorney Garry Bolnick does not think Brawley can pay off her debt without help from Sharpton and the lawyers who represented her.
"The only way we will get the money is if some of her so-called supporters come up with it," Bolnick said, according to USA Today.
However, Pagones told The Post that he'll forgive the rest of the debt if Brawley admits that she falsely accused him.