Smoking Gun... the story... the rebuttal ... the evidence ... The story...

APRIL 7--When friends and family members gathered recently at the White House for a private celebration of Michelle Obamas 50th birthday, one of the invited partygoers was a former paid FBI Mafia informant. That same man attended Februarys state dinner in honor of French President Francois Hollande. He was seated with his girlfriend at a table adjacent to President Barack Obama, who is likely unaware that, according to federal agents, his guest once interacted with members of four of New York Citys five organized crime families. He even secretly taped some of those wiseguys using a briefcase that FBI technicians outfitted with a recording device.

The high-profile Obama supporter was also on the dais atop the U.S. Capitol steps last year when

in for a second term. He the president was sworn was seated in front of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two rows behind Beyonce and Jay Z, and about 20 feet from Eric Holder, the countrys top law enforcement officer. As head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Holder leads an agency that once reported that Obamas inauguration guest also had La Cosa Nostra contacts beyond Gotham, and engaged in conversations with LCN members from other parts of the United States. The former mob snitch has become a regular in the White House, where he has met with the 44th president in the East Room, the Roosevelt Room, and the Oval Office. He has also attended Obama Christmas parties, speeches, policy announcements, and even watched a Super Bowl with the First Family (an evening the man has called one of the highlights of my life). During these gatherings, he has mingled with cabinet members, top Obama aides, military leaders, business executives, and members of Congress. His former confederates were a decidedly dicier lot: ex-convicts, extortionists, heroin traffickers, and mob henchmen. The mans surreptitious recordings, FBI records show, aided his government handlers in the successful targeting of powerful Mafia figures with nicknames like Benny Eggs, Chin, Fritzy, Corky, and Baldy Dom. Later this week, Obama will travel to New York and appear in a Manhattan hotel ballroom at the side of the man whom FBI agents primarily referred to as CI-7--short for confidential informant #7--in secret court filings. In those documents, investigators vouched for him as a reliable, productive, and accurate source of information about underworld figures.

The ex-informant has been one of Obamas most unwavering backers, a cheerleader who has nightly bludgeoned the presidents Republican opponents in televised broadsides. For his part, Obama has sought the mans counsel, embraced him publicly, and saluted his commitment to fight injustice and inequality. The president has even commented favorably on his friends svelte figure, the physical manifestation of a rehabilitation effort that coincided with Obamas ascension to the White House. This radical makeover has brought the man wealth, a daily TV show, bespoke suits, a luxury Upper West Side apartment, and a spot on best seller lists. Most importantly, he has the ear of the President of the United States, an equally remarkable and perplexing achievement for the former FBI asset known as CI-7, the Rev. Al Sharpton. A lengthy investigation by The Smoking Gun has uncovered remarkable details about Sharptons

organized crime task force past work as an informant for a joint comprised of FBI agents and NYPD detectives, as well as his dealings with an assortment of wiseguys. Beginning in the mid-1980s and spanning several years, Sharptons cooperation was fraught with danger since the FBIs principal targets were leaders of the Genovese crime family, the countrys largest and most feared Mafia outfit. In addition to aiding the FBI/NYPD task force, which was known as the Genovese squad, Sharptons cooperation extended to several other investigative agencies. TSGs account of Sharptons secret life as CI-7 is based on hundreds of pages of confidential FBI affidavits, documents released by the bureau in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, court records, and extensive interviews with six members of the Genovese squad, as well as other law enforcement officials to whom the activist provided assistance. Like almost every other FBI informant, Sharpton was solely an information source. The parameters of his cooperation did not include Sharpton ever surfacing publicly or testifying on a witness stand. Genovese squad investigators--representing both the FBI and NYPD--recalled how Sharpton, now 59, deftly extracted information from wiseguys. In fact, one Gambino crime family figure became so comfortable with the protest leader that he spoke openly--during ten wired face-toface meetings--about a wide range of mob business, from shylocking and extortions to death threats and the sanity of Vincent Chin Gigante, the Genovese boss who long feigned mental

illness in a bid to deflect law enforcement scrutiny. As the mafioso expounded on these topics, Sharptons briefcase--a specially customized Hartmann model--recorded his every word. Task force members, who were interviewed separately, spoke on the condition of anonymity when describing Sharptons work as an informant and the Genovese squads activities. Some of these investigators provided internal FBI documents to a reporter. Records obtained by TSG show that information gathered by Sharpton was used by federal investigators to help secure court authorization to bug two Genovese family social clubs, including Gigantes Greenwich Village headquarters, three autos used by crime

family leaders, and more than a dozen phone lines. These listening devices and wiretaps were approved during the course of a major racketeering investigation targeting the Genovese familys hierarchy. A total of eight separate U.S. District Court judges--presiding in four federal jurisdictions-signed interception orders that were based on sworn FBI affidavits including information gathered by Sharpton. The phones bugged as a result of these court orders included two lines in Gigantes Manhattan townhouse, the home phone of Genovese captain Dominick Baldy Dom Canterino, and the office lines of music industry power Morris Levy, a longtime Genovese family associate. The resulting surreptitious recordings were eventually used to help convict an assortment of Mafia members and associates. Investigators also used Sharptons information in an application for a wiretap on the telephone in the Queens residence of Federico Fritzy Giovanelli, a Genovese soldier. Giovanelli was sentenced to 20 years in prison for racketeering following a trial during which those recordings were played for jurors. In a recent interview, the 82-year-old Giovanelli--now three years removed from his latest stint in federal custody--said that he was unaware that Sharpton contributed in any fashion to his phones bugging. He then jokingly chided a reporter for inquiring about the civil rights leaders past. Poor Sharpton, he cleaned up his life and you want to ruin him, Giovanelli laughed.

While Sharptons acrimonious history with law enforcement--especially the NYPD--rankled some Genovese squad investigators, they nonetheless grudgingly acknowledged in interviews that the activist produced for those he would go on to frequently pillory. Genovese squad members, however, did not share with Sharpton specific details about how they

he was gathering for them. This is standard were using the information practice since FBI affidavits in support of wiretap applications are filed under seal by Department of Justice prosecutors. Still, Sharpton was briefed in advance of his undercover sorties, so he was well aware of the squads investigative interest in Gigante and his Mafia cronies. Sharpton vehemently denies having worked as an FBI informant. He has alleged that claims of government cooperation were attempts by dark forces to stunt his aggressive brand of civil rights advocacy or, perhaps, get him killed. In his most recent book, The Rejected Stone, which hit best seller lists following its October 2013 publication, Sharpton claimed to have once been set up by the government, whose agents later leaked false information that could have gotten me killed. He added, So I have been seriously tested in what I believe over the years. In an interview Saturday, Sharpton again denied working as a confidential informant, claiming that his prior cooperation with FBI agents was limited to efforts to prompt investigations of drug dealing in minority communities, as well as the swindling of black artists in the recording industry. He also repeatedly denied being flipped by federal agents in the course of an undercover operation. When asked specifically about his recording of the Gambino crime family member, Sharpton was noncommittal: Im not saying yes, Im not saying no. If Sharptons account is to be believed, he was simply a concerned citizen who voluntarily (and briefly) joined arm-in-arm with federal agents, perhaps risking peril in the process. The other explanation for Sharptons cooperation--one that has uniformly been offered by knowledgeable law enforcement agents--presents the reverend in a less noble light. Worried that he could face criminal charges, Sharpton opted for the path of self-preservation and did what the FBI asked. Which is usually how someone is compelled to repeatedly record a gangster discussing murder, extortion, and loan sharking.

Sharpton spoke for an hour in an office at the House of Justice, his Harlem headquarters, where he had just finished addressing a crowd of about 200 people that included his two adult daughters

and his second wife (from whom he has been separated for ten years). A few minutes into the interview, Sharpton asked, Are you taping this? A TSG reporter answered that he was not recording their interview, but had a digital recorder and wished to do so. Sharpton declined that request. In the absence of any real examination/exhumation of Sharptons past involvement with the FBI and the Mafia, his denials have served the civil rights leader well. Scores of articles and broadcast reports about the Obama-era rehabilitation of Sharpton have mentioned his inflammatory past--Tawana Brawley, Crown Heights, Freddys Fashion Mart, and various antiSemitic and homophobic statements. But his organized crime connections and related informant work have received no such scrutiny. In a 60 Minutes profile aired three months before the August 2011 launch of Sharptons MSNBC show, correspondent Lesley Stahl reported on the tame Sharptons metamorphosis from loud mouth activist to trusted White House advisor whos become the presidents go-to black leader. As for prior underworld entanglements, those were quickly dispatched: There were allegations of mob ties, never proved, Stahl flatly declared. As host of MSNBCs PoliticsNation, Sharpton now reluctantly identifies himself as a member of the media, if not actually a journalist. He spends his time at 30 Rockefeller Plaza surrounded by reporters, editors, and researchers committed to accuracy and the exposure of those who violate the public trust. In fact, Sharpton himself delights in a daily feature that seeks to expose liars, hypocrites, and others engaged in deceit (his targets tend to be Republican opponents of the Obama administration). As he wraps this segment, Sharpton points his finger at the camera and addresses his quarry: Nice try, but we gotcha!

In addition to his MSNBC post, Sharpton heads the National Action Network, which describes itself as a Christian activist organization. Obama, who refers to Sharpton as Rev or Reverend Al, is scheduled to deliver a keynote address Friday at the groups annual convention in New York City. Mayor Bill DeBlasio will preside Wednesday over the conventions ribbon cutting ceremony, while Holder and three Obama cabinet secretaries will deliver speeches. Sharpton has been a leading supporter of Holder,

who spoke at the National Action Networks 2012 convention and saluted the reverend for your partnership, your friendship, and also for your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill. Last Friday, Sharpton appeared on a panel at a Department of Justice forum led by Tony West, the agencys thirdranking official. West thanked Sharpton for his leadership, day in and day out, on issues of reconciliation and community restoration. According to its most recent IRS return, which Sharpton signed in mid-November 2013, the National Action Network pays him $241,402 annually for serving as president and CEO. In return for that hefty salary, Sharpton--who hosts a three-hour daily radio show in addition to his nightly cable TV program--reportedly works a 40-hour week for the not-for-profit (which lists unpaid tax liabilities totaling $813,576). For longtime observers, the new Sharptons public prominence and West Wing access is bewildering considering that his history, mob ties included, could charitably be described as checkered. In fact, Obama has banished others guilty of lesser transgressions (see: Wright, Jeremiah). Sharpton now calls himself a refined agitator, an activist no longer prone to incendiary language or careless provocations. Indeed, a Google check confirms that it has been years since he labeled a detractor a faggot, used the term homos, or derisively referred to Jewish diamond merchants. ***

As an informant in development, as one federal investigator referred to Sharpton, the protest leader was seen as an intriguing prospective source, since he had significant contacts in politics, boxing, and the music industry. Before he was flipped in the course of an FBI sting operation in 1983, Sharpton had established relationships with promoter Don King, various elected officials, and several powerful New York hoodlums involved in concert promotion, record distribution, and talent management. At the time, the music business was overrun by hustlers, con artists, black and white, Sharpton

autobiography. A federal agent recalled in his 1996 who was not part of the Genovese squad--but who also used Sharpton as an informant--recalled that everyone was trying to mine his music industry ties. In fact, by any measure, Sharpton himself was a Mafia associate, the law enforcement designation given to mob affiliates who, while not initiated, work with and for crime family members. While occupying the lowest rung on the LCN org chart--which is topped by a bossunderboss-consigliere triumvirate--associates far outnumber made men, and play central roles in a crime familys operation, from money-making pursuits to more violent endeavors. For more than four years, the fact that Sharpton was working as an informant was known only to members of the Genovese squad and a small number of other law enforcement agents. As with any Mafia informant, protecting Sharptons identity was crucial to maintaining the viability of ongoing investigations. Not to mention keeping him alive. For example, an episode recounted by TSG sources highlighted the sensitive nature of Sharptons cooperation with the FBI/NYPD task force. In advance of seeking court authorization to bug a pair of Genovese family social clubs and a Cadillac used by Gigante and Canterino, a draft version of a wiretap affidavit was circulated for review within the Genovese squad, which operated from the FBIs lower Manhattan headquarters. The 53-page document, which detailed the probable cause to believe that listening devices would yield incriminating

conversations, concerned some investigators due to the degree to which the activities of Sharpton were described in the document. While the affidavit prepared by FBI Agent Gerald King and a federal prosecutor only referred to Sharpton as CI-7, the document included the name of a Gambino mobster whom Sharpton taped, as well as the dates and details of five of their recorded meetings. Such specificity was problematic since the possibility existed that the affidavits finalized version could someday be turned over to defense lawyers in the discovery phase of a criminal trial. Investigators fretted that Sharpton could easily be unmasked by the Gambino member, who, if ever questioned about his meetings with CI-7, would surely realize that Sharpton was the wired informant referred to in the FBI affidavit. That discovery, of course, could have placed Sharptons life in grave danger. The Gambino wiseguy, too, likely would have faced trouble, since he was recorded speaking about a wide range of Mafia matters, including Gigantes illegal operations. The Genovese power--rightly paranoid about bugged phones and listening devices-famously forbid fellow gangsters from even speaking his name. In fact, if a wiseguy had to refer to Gigante during an in-person meeting, a quick stroke of the chin was the acceptable means of identification. In response to concerns about the King affidavit, the draft, which a source provided to TSG, was rewritten to carefully shroud Sharptons work with government agents. The affidavits final version--which was submitted to two federal judges--no longer included the disclosure that CI7 had consensually recorded his conversations with a gangster. The wiseguys name was also

deleted from family or the informants sex.

the document, as was any reference to the Gambino

Instead, the revamped affidavit simply noted that CI-7 reported to the FBI various details of Genovese family rackets. The actual source of that valuable intelligence about Gigante & Co. had been carefully obscured. As were the details of how that information was obtained via Sharptons battery-powered valise. But despite efforts like this to protect Sharpton, some details of his informant work leaked out in January 1988, when New York Newsday reported that the civil rights activist had cooperated with federal investigations targeting organized crime figures and Don King. Though he reportedly made incriminating admissions to the newspaper, Sharpton quickly issued vehement denials that he had snitched on anyone. While acknowledging contact with law enforcement officials, Sharpton--then involved in the early stages of the Tawana Brawley hoax--said he sought the help of investigators to combat the crack cocaine epidemic ravaging New Yorks poorest communities. Sharpton also claimed to have contacted agents (and pledged his assistance) after a Mafia associate allegedly threatened him over a music industry dispute. Sharpton asserted that a phone installed in his Brooklyn apartment by federal investigators in mid-1987 was there to serve as a hotline for the public to report drug dealing. He flatly denied recording phone conversations at the direction of law enforcement agents. In one radio interview, Sharpton even declared, We have an ethical thing against wiretapping. In fact, Sharpton had been cooperating with the U.S. Attorneys Office in Brooklyn as part of an investigation targeting Don King. According to a source involved with that probe, federal agents ran him for a couple of months, during which time Sharpton did some recordings via his

new home telephone. But the nascent Department of Justice operation was abruptly shuttered in

the wake of the

New York Newsday story.

The Brooklyn investigators were introduced to Sharpton in late-1987 by Joseph Spinelli, one of the reverends former FBI handlers (and one of the agents who initially secured his cooperation with the bureau). While Spinelli had left the FBI for another government post, he still helped facilitate Sharptons interaction with other investigators. Joe was shopping him around, one source recalled. For example, in July 1987, Spinelli called a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and offered Sharptons assistance with a matter the lawyer was handling. The case involved Salvatore Pisello, a mobbed-up music industry figure who had just been indicted for tax evasion (and whom Sharpton had previously accused of threatening his life). Referring to Sharpton, ex-prosecutor Marvin Rudnick said in an interview, I didnt know who he was when Spinelli called. In subsequent conversations with Rudnick, Sharpton provided information about Pisello and a related music industry matter that was being scrutinized by Justice Department investigators. While Sharpton would not prove particularly helpful to Rudnick, the attorney clearly recalled his brief, unorthodox dealings with the New York activist. I remember having to go to a pay phone to take the call because he didnt want it to be traced, Rudnick laughed. *** So why did Sharpton agree to become an FBI informant? And why was he willing to risk the dangers inherent in such cooperation? He thought he didnt have a choice, one Genovese squad agent recalled. In the course of an investigation being run by Spinelli and his partner John Pritchard, Sharpton was secretly recorded in meetings with an FBI undercover agent posing as a wealthy drug dealer seeking to promote boxing matches.

As previously reported, Colombo crime family captain Michael Franzese, who knew Sharpton, enlisted the activists help in connecting with Don King. Franzese and Sharpton were later surreptitiously filmed during one meeting with the undercover, while Sharpton and

Daniel Pagano, a Genovese soldier, were recorded at another sit-down. Paganos father Joseph was a Genovese power deeply involved in the entertainment industry (and who also managed the crime familys rackets in counties north of New York City). During one meeting with Sharpton, the undercover agent offered to get him "pure coke" at $35,000 a kilo. As the phony drug kingpin spoke, Sharpton nodded his head and said, I hear you. When the undercover promised Sharpton a 10 percent finders fee if he could arrange the purchase of several kilos, the reverend referred to an unnamed buyer and said, If hes gonna do it, hell do it much more than that. The FBI agent steered the conversation toward the possible procurement of cocaine, sources said, since investigators believed that Sharpton acquaintance Daniel Pagano--who was not present--was looking to consummate drug deals. Joseph Pagano, an East Harlem native who rose through a Genovese crew notorious for narcotics trafficking, spent nearly seven years in federal prison for heroin distribution. While Sharpton did not explicitly offer to arrange a drug deal, some investigators thought his interaction with the undercover agent could be construed as a violation of federal conspiracy laws. Though an actual prosecution, an ex-FBI agent acknowledged, would have been a reach, agents decided to approach Sharpton and attempt to flip the activist, who was then shy of his 30th birthday. In light of Sharptons relationship with Don King, FBI agents wanted his help in connection with the bureaus three-year-old boxing investigation, code named Crown Royal and headed by Spinelli and Pritchard. The FBI agents confronted Sharpton with the undercover videos and warned that he could face criminal charges as a result of the secret recordings. Sharpton, of course, could have walked out and ran to King, Franzese, or Pagano and reported the FBI approach (and the fact that drug dealer Victor Quintana was actually a federal agent).

In subsequent denials that he had been flipped, Sharpton has contended that he stiffened in the face of the FBI agents, meeting their bluff with bluster and bravado. He claimed to have turned away Spinelli & Co., daring them to Indict me and Prosecute. Sharpton has complained that the seasoned investigators were trying to sting me, entrap mea young minister. In fact, Sharpton fell for the FBI ruse and agreed to cooperate, a far-reaching decision he made without input from a lawyer, according to sources. I think there was some fear [of prosecution] on his part, recalled a former federal agent. In a TSG interview, Sharpton claimed that he rebuffed the FBI agents, who, he added, threatened to serve him with a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury investigating King. After being confronted by the bureau, Sharpton said he consulted with an attorney (whom he declined to identify). Following bureau guidelines, agents formally opened a 137 informant file on Sharpton, a move that was approved by FBI supervisors, according to several sources. Agents anticipated using Sharpton in the Crown Royal case focusing on

King, but during initial debriefings of their new recruit, it became clear that his contacts in the music business were equally appealing. Sharpton had met James Brown in the mid-70s, and became extremely close to the R&B superstar. He worked for and traveled with the mercurial performer, married one of Browns backup singers, and wore the same processed hairdo as the entertainer. Like Brown, Sharpton would sometimes even wear a cowboy hat atop his tribute conk. It was first through executives at Spring Records, a small Manhattan-based label affiliated with Brown, that Sharpton--who worked from the firms office--was introduced to various wiseguys, including Franzese. His circle of mob contacts would grow to include, among others, the Paganos, Carmine DeNoia, an imposing Pagano associate known as Wassel, and Joseph Joe Bana Buonanno, a Gambino crime family figure involved in record distribution and production. At one point before he was flipped, Sharpton participated in a mob scheme to create a business front that would seek a share of lucrative Con Edison set-asides intended for minority-owned businesses. That deal, which involved garbage collection contracts, cratered when the power company determined that Sharptons silent partner was Genovese captain Matthew Matty the

Horse Ianniello. Details of the Con Ed plot emerged at a federal criminal trial of Ianniello and his business partner Benjamin Cohen. It was Cohen, who worked across the hall from Spring Records, who recruited Sharpton for the mob garbage gambit. After his attempted detour into waste management, Sharpton returned his focus to the music industry, which, as he observed in his first book, is an extremely dirty endeavor, because it is a cash business. Sharpton continued, Music is a street business, and thats where organized crime is, on the street. Still, he noted, I wanted to learn more. One of Sharptons teachers was an ex-con named Robert Curington, a music producer with a questionable history. Curington, a standout running back at North Carolina Central University, played for several pro teams until injuries forced his retirement in 1969. He transitioned into music management and teamed with legendary WBLS DJ Frankie Crocker to promote concerts

featuring R&B acts like Barry White, The Dramatics, and The OJays. At the time, Curington had a desk inside the Broadway office of Calla Records, a small soul label headed by Nate McCalla, a Morris Levy bodyguard/sidekick. McCalla, who was murdered in 1980, was, according to an NYPD report, also connected with Colombo crime family underboss John Sonny Franzese, father of Michael. In addition to his music pursuits, Curington also distributed heroin, according to Drug Enforcement Administration records. Curington was twice indicted on federal narcotics trafficking charges. After being acquitted in a 1975 case, he was arrested again in 1977 after agents found a kilo of heroin inside a briefcase in a cream-colored Thunderbird carrying Curington and pal Frank Townsend, DEA agents reported. According to prosecution filings in the second case, federal agents had twice observed Curington transacting sales of heroin with a DEA informant months prior to his arrest with Townsend. In a court opinion, a federal judge declared that the men were known by the DEA agents to be major narcotics traffickers. Curington was more charitable in his description of Townsend,

whom he identified in one court filing as a fellow concert promoter who was also in the adhesives business. After a mistrial, Curington pleaded guilty to a single count related to the receipt of 480 bars of mannite, which traffickers use to cut heroin. In August 1978, he was sentenced to two years in federal prison on the felony charge, and ordered to serve three years of special parole upon his release from custody. The mannite, according to court and DEA records, had been delivered by

an undercover Curingtons girlfriend.

agent to the Upper West Side apartment of

Curington, who was married with two young daughters, was also dating Sylvia Rhone after meeting the 25-year-old at Buddah Records, where she worked as an assistant. As a DEA informant sought to arrange the mannite delivery, he called Rhone in an effort to locate Curington. The informant told Rhone that Curington asked me to get something for him and I contacted these people and I got it for himand Im sitting on it and holding it, according to a DEA transcript of the recorded conversation. Well, I think you should keep trying you know, Rhone replied. Rhone, who was not charged in the narcotics case, would later become the music industrys most influential female executive. Now 62, Rhone has previously headed the Elektra Entertainment Group and Universal Motown Records. Last month, she was appointed president of Epic Records, whose artist roster includes Michael Jackson, Prince, Outkast, and Ozzy Osbourne. While Curington was helping Rhone pay the rent on her West 90th Street apartment, his wife and children were living in New Jersey. As he explained in a letter to his sentencing judge, Curingtons heart was in New York and the hearth was in New Jersey. Curingtons kin had decamped to the Garden State after two gunmen forced their way into the familys Upper East Side apartment and demanded money. One of the intruders accompanied Curington to a Chemical Bank branch, where he retrieved $11,000 from a safe deposit box. The other gunman held Curingtons pregnant wife hostage in the apartment until his partner received the cash. When Curington returned to his home, he found his wife tied to a chair, but otherwise unharmed. The gunmen, dressed as maintenance workers, also stole nearly $4000 in jewelry.

A New York Times story about the home invasion described Curington as a musical booking agent, but made no mention that the crime appeared to be a by-product of his other business interests. In recent interviews, Curington, 72, described the mobbed-up Levy as his rabbi. Remarking on the wide influence of the Genovese crime family associate, who was worth $59 million at the time of his death, Curington said, We all served the same God. Curington, who was valued as a record promoter due to his friendship with Crocker, also spoke of working closely with

Levy partner, and meeting with Buonanno, a former Joseph Pagano to get the Genovese soldiers approval for certain music business endeavors. As for Sharpton, Curington said that he worked closely with the activist when Sharpton was young and stupid and broke and seeking to pressure large music labels and concert promoters into spending more money in the black community. Sharpton threatened to organize pickets and boycotts unless a target handed over money--usually in the form of a contribution to the National Youth Movement, the predecessor organization to Sharptons National Action Network. Sometimes, a block of concert tickets could also quash a protest. The youth groups finances were in shambles, and Sharpton never bothered to file tax returns or New York State disclosure forms for the not-for-profit. Curington, who Sharpton named the organizations Vice President of Industrial Affairs, helped the preacher organize demonstrations during which Sharpton splashed red paint on buildings that he identified as crack houses. Amidst all the newspaper and TV coverage of Sharptons stunts, nobody noticed that the reverends sidekick was a convicted felon familiar with the wholesale end of the narcotics business.

While working with Sharpton, Curington was also partners with Buonanno, who owned a thriving record distribution business headquartered in an upper Manhattan warehouse, as well as several retail record stores. Curington and Buonanno, a volatile chain smoker, operated the Bullseye and Friends & Co. record labels, which specialized in Latin, Disco, and R&B releases. They shared producing credits on singer Esther Williamss 1981 album Inside of Me, with Buonanno identified in the liner notes by his alias, Joe Bana. Of the two partners, Curington had the ears and musical ability. Buonanno, as Curington

deposition, was not musically testified in a 2008 civil inclined. Curington added that Buonanno spoke heavy Italian. He was a wise guy. Buonanno grew up in East Harlem with Joseph Pagano, Wassel DeNoia, and an assortment of future hoodlums. He dropped out of high school after two years and joined the Marine Corps in

1943, only to soon go AWOL. Buonanno was subsequently arrested, court martialed, and sentenced to three years in prison, according to court records. He served about a year in custody and rejoined the Corps for 18 months of post-war service (which was split between China, Japan, Guam, and the Caroline Islands). He came back to New York and worked as a salvage operator and trucker before landing a job as general manager of an East Harlem-based garbage company owned by his uncles. Buonanno returned to federal custody in 1961 for his role in the sale of nearly half-a-kilo of heroin to an undercover Treasury Department agent (who paid about $6000 for the drug during a meet at a Queens motel). At trial, Buonanno, then 35, made it seem he was a naf when it came to narcotics. During cross-examination by a federal prosecutor, Buonanno was asked, Do you know what junk is? He replied, Before this courtroom, I always thought it took place in the junk shop. In reply to a inquiry about his knowledge of heroin, Buonanno testified, I read about it in the papers. A federal jury later convicted both Buonanno and Francis Kenny on a pair of felony drug charges. Buonanno, though, handled the guilty verdict better than his 28-year-old codefendant. Immediately following the duos conviction, Kenny, while being escorted by a pair of marshals to a courthouse jail cell, broke free and dove over a stairway bannister, plunging about three floors to his death. Sentenced to five years in custody, Buonanno did some of that time in the Lewisburg, Pennsylvania lockup where Chin Gigante was concurrently incarcerated for heroin distribution, according to federal Bureau of Prisons records. Buonanno did not, however, serve his full sentence, thanks to a successful petition for executive clemency that argued he played a limited role in the heroin transaction. In a memo written two weeks after his brother was assassinated, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy noted that he was willing to give Buonanno some benefit of doubt, and recommended that the felons sentence be immediately commuted. In March 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson granted Buonannos clemency bid, springing him from prison a year early. *** After Sharpton agreed to cooperate with the FBI, agents debriefed him in an effort to identify avenues of investigation for which he could be helpful. Initially, the bureau adopted a shotgun approach when it came to their new confidential source, recalled one Genovese squad member. Sharpton, the investigator added, was an informant in development whom agents sent out to gather information from a wide variety of contacts. While Sharpton circulated in several targetrich environments, his greatest value would prove to involve mobsters. Sharpton told his FBI handlers about his prior involvement with several Mafia figures, including Genovese soldier Joseph Pagano, whose entertainment industry investments spanned decades. According to FBI files, Pagano--who federal agents suspected of involvement in several underworld hits--once used the Copacabana nightclub as his de facto office, and had interests in talent management and booking firms.

Bureau sources reported that Pagano controlled singer Sammy Davis Jr., engaged in kickback

Records schemes with several Columbia executives, had been offered an ownership interest in the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, and even lost a big roll [of money] to Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. These pursuits were slightly more glamorous than Paganos shylock book in Pomona or his numbers operation in Mamaroneck. In addition to probing Paganos racketeering activity, agents even sought to substantiate an informant report about the mobsters private life. The bureaus J. Edgar Hoover-era source indicated that when Pagano was jailed in upstate New Yorks Sing Sing prison, he turned gay after engaging in homosexual activities. Pagano was also extremely close to Rodney Dangerfield, who performed at the wiseguy-choked 1973 nuptials of the hoodlums son Daniel, as well as the 1977 wedding of Paganos daughter, according to FBI records. Before his comedy career took off, Dangerfield--then known as Jack Roy--sold aluminum siding door-to-door, a tin man who pleaded guilty in 1955 to six criminal charges after investigators determined that he was fraudulently securing Federal Housing Administration loans in the names of customers. Dangerfield received a one-year suspended prison sentence and probation for those crimes (the disclosure of which the comedian successfully kept under wraps). So, like Pagano, Dangerfield was a convicted felon who knew what it was like to be investigated by the FBI. In fact, the young agent who arrested Dangerfield went on to spend more than a decade heading the organized crime division in the FBIs New York City headquarters. Sharpton told investigators that he thought Pagano felt indebted to him because he once helped broker a business meeting for Pagano with Muhammad Ali and representatives of the boxer, who was then retired. Sharpton had also met with Pagano at a National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention in Florida and at the wiseguys residence.

Additionally, Sharpton met with Paganos son Daniel in Florida, at a Manhattan office, and the Stage Deli. Sharpton also relayed to agents one of the elder Paganos favorite Dangerfield stories. The comedian, Pagano told Sharpton, spun a tale about how he was once pressured by a mobster who was trying to move in on a nightclub the performer owned. Dangerfield claimed the hoodlum demanded to know who the entertainer was with, shorthand for someones Mafia affiliation. What do you mean? Im here with my brother, the clueless Dangerfield replied. The flustered mobster then reworded his inquiry, saying, No, I mean whos your rabbi? To which the star answered, Rabbi Horowitz! The pairs back-and-forth abruptly ended, Dangerfield claimed, with him getting smacked in the mouth. The story, apocryphal as it may have been, was a hit among underworld audiences. After Sharptons initial debriefings were completed, his role with the FBI transitioned, as one investigator recalled, from informational to operational. This shift roughly coincided with the formation of the first Joint Organized Crime Task Force, which paired FBI agents with New York City detectives (each agency initially contributed about six investigators and a couple of cars to the task force). The group, which would come to be called the Genovese squad, was headed by Henry Flinter, a veteran NYPD investigator, and FBI Agent John Pritchard, who was Sharpton's handler. In this role, Pritchard would occasionally pay Sharpton small amounts of money, according to a Genovese squad member. As the task force ramped up, its members reviewed both FBI and NYPD files, as well as informant, physical surveillance, and electronic surveillance reports. As a result, the squads first

target became clear: Vincent Chin Gigante. The feared mob boss had eluded prosecution for 20 years, a period during which he rose to power within the crime family named after Vito Genovese (for whom Gigante once worked as a chauffeur/bodyguard). The Genovese squads investigative plan was simple: Gather up fresh intelligence on the illegal activities of Gigante and his crew, then use that material to secure court-authorized listening devices that could yield valuable evidence against Mafia members and associates. Recalling the task forces early investigative steps, one NYPD representative said, We were building towards a wire. And that is where Al Sharpton entered the picture. Investigators were particularly interested in the relationship Morris Levy had with the Genovese familys leadership. The music industry power, who founded the legendary Birdland jazz club, owned Roulette Records and the Strawberries chain of retail music stores, and had muscled his way into control of the publishing rights of a massive song catalog. Levy was also notorious for hijacking songwriting credits in order to guarantee himself ongoing royalty payments. Most famously, he claimed to have co-written Why Do Fools Fall in Love with 13-year-old Frankie Lymon. The mogul, who made a career of gypping R&B artists, also held a stake in Sugar Hill Records, the pioneering New Jersey rap label whose artists included Kurtis Blow, The Sugarhill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Despite being married and divorced five times, Levy was still worth in excess of $50 million, and had become the most valuable of underworld commodities--a reliable earner. Levy was closely aligned with Thomas Tommy Ryan Eboli, a Genovese captain who ran the familys Greenwich Village crew, which included Gigante and two of his brothers. Eboli, who vacationed in Italy with Levy and had a stake in several of

his companies, was rubbed out in 1972, two years after becoming the familys acting boss. Control of Levy eventually passed to Gigante and his older brother Mario. Another Gigante sibling was also extremely close to Levy. Father Louis Gigante frequently socialized with the businessman, who gave the Roman Catholic priest a small property adjacent to his 1500-acre Sunnyview Farm in upstate Ghent, New York (which Levy used to entertain top record company executives, as well as the likes of McCalla, DeNoia, Curington, and Buonanno). Along with the free acre of land, Levy gave the priest a $32,000 mortgage at half the prevailing interest rate, according to real estate records. Gigante then built a ranch-style home on his property, which slopes down to a large pond. [Though Sharpton never met Chin Gigante or his two brothers who were also Genovese members, the reverend did once cross paths with Father Gigante at the Brooklyn federal courthouse. Sharpton was there in support of a Demoratic congressman on trial, while Gigante was at the opposite end of the sixth floor attending his brothers racketeering trial. During a break in both cases, Gigante--who himself was once know for staging street protests--approached Sharpton and introduced himself. The men shook hands and spoke briefly, out of earshot of a reporter.] While Sharpton was circulating among mob-tied music industry figures, the Genovese squad was scrambling to develop background dossiers on their informants new acquaintances. Investigators specifically focused on Buonanno, who had once been partners in M.R.J. Record Distributors with Levy and Eboli. In interviews, several Genovese squad members said that Daniel Pagano introduced Sharpton to Buonanno, effectively vouching for the activist. Curington, on the other hand, told TSG that he made the introduction.

In search of background on Buonanno, Genovese squad members reviewed FBI files that yielded little more than the New Jersey residents affiliation with the Gambino family, and the fact that agents had interviewed him years earlier about his sale of counterfeit Bob Dylan records. Buonanno--who told agents his name was Joe Bana--was not charged in connection with that piracy probe. As detailed in a series of FBI memos, the Genovese squad first asked a supervisor in the bureaus Newark office for information on Buonannos telephone number. Then squad members began

surveilling Buonannos tidy split-level home in leafy New Milford, where a BMW and Mercedes-Benz were parked in the driveway. At one point, agents were able to photograph the balding wiseguy, who was partial to zipper jackets. Each of the FBI memos noted that information about Buonanno was being developed in the course of a racketeering investigation of Gigante and his Genovese crew. In a second 1984 memo seeking help from Newark agents, a Genovese squad member wrote that Buonanno had recently been seen with Joe Pagano and another member of the Genovese family. Buonanno, the agent wrote, was affiliated with the recording industry in New York City, and was allegedly reported to be a made man afforded a great deal of respect. About two months after the Genovese squad began researching Buonanno, investigators decided it was time that their shotgun approach with Sharpton directed some spray at the Gambino crime family figure. Carrying the wired briefcase, Sharpton met with Buonanno on a Wednesday afternoon and recorded their conversation. While it was a short and uneventful encounter, the pairs next meeting would prove valuable for the Genovese squad. Three weeks after their first meeting, Buonanno opened up to Sharpton about Levys affiliation with Chin Gigante, as well as his own rocky partnership with Levy and Eboli. That business relationship soured, Buonanno recalled, after Levy accused Buonannos brother of stealing from their record distribution company. Buonanno told Sharpton that Levy asked Eboli to murder his brother, a request that was brought before the mobs ruling Commission since two different

Mafia families were involved in the dispute. Buonanno recounted that Levys hit demand was ultimately denied, according to an FBI summary of the second taped Sharpton-Buonanno meeting. Over the following months, Sharpton met with Buonanno eight more times, surreptitiously recording the Gambino member on each occasion. During these encounters, an expansive Buonanno spoke about Gigantes stranglehold on Levy, the hoodlums share of Levys retail chain, and how the businessman put up money for members of Gigantes crew to purchase real estate. Buonanno also told Sharpton that Joseph Pagano had, over the prior two years, sought to have Levy killed due to his intercession in an extortion scheme. While that beef was eventually settled without bloodshed, said Buonanno, Levy was ordered to pay Pagano $100,000 following a Genovese family sit-down. Confiding that Levy had frequently tried to end his relationship with the Genovese gang, Buonanno told Sharpton that the wealthy businessman has only one way out. Buonanno then gestured like someone pointing a gun and pulling the trigger, according to an FBI affidavit. During one recorded meeting, Buonanno said that he had learned a lot from mob boss Carlo Gambino, whom he credited with shaping his career. He also spoke with Sharpton about a broad range of other Mafia topics, from loan sharks and numbers runners to a proposed African diamond deal and Gigantes purported illiteracy. Buonanno told Sharpton that he was in the joint with Chin, adding that the Genovese boss hates everyone not Italian. He also claimed that Gigante was present at the Eboli rubout to make sure it was done right, since his Greenwich Village

crew hated Tommy Ryan. Gigante, Buonanno declared, is a throwback to 1930s mobsters, according to an FBI summary. Recalling Sharptons taping of Buonanno, an NYPD representative on the Genovese squad marveled, Joe Bana just gave him a whole insight into how Chin and Morris operated. The source told of serving on a surveillance team during one Sharpton-Buonanno meeting at a Manhattan restaurant. The investigator accompanied squad leaders Pritchard and Flinter to a spot several blocks from the Upper East Side eatery, where they met up with Sharpton and handed him the wired briefcase. After eyeballing the restaurant while Sharpton was inside, the task force members reconnected with their informant after the meeting and retrieved the briefcase. Sharpton, whose handlers prepped him in advance of each Buonanno meeting, was also debriefed following those encounters. Each of his tapes was reviewed by multiple investigators, and one agent was responsible for preparing a detailed written recap of what was discussed on the recordings. Known as a Summary of Pertinent Intercept, those individual documents were released to TSG in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the FBI. Before turning over the records, however, bureau officials redacted Sharptons name from the material (click here to view a representative report). Since Buonanno is deceased, his name appears in the reports

because he is no longer entitled to Privacy Act protections. The Non-telephone intercept summaries were not contained in Buonannos personal FBI dossier, but rather in separate files related to the racketeering investigation of Gigante and his Genovese cohorts.

When asked about Sharptons ability to draw out Buonanno on sensitive mob matters, a Genovese squad investigator said the informant excelled at playing dumb. But that analysis fails to recognize that Sharpton is quick on his feet and has been a gifted extemporaneous speaker since his days as a young Pentecostal wonder preacher. It is not hard to imagine that Sharpton could have easily kept his apprehensions in check and got Buonanno talking. [Though he has become more disciplined and less voluble, Sharpton has always been personable and easy to talk to, as most journalists could attest. Though he blamed this reporter for instigating a criminal investigation that resulted in his indictment for tax evasion, Sharpton never failed to accept subsequent phone calls or lunch invitations. In fact, he even made an appearance at this reporters 1995 bachelor party, invited by friends of the groom, who was not told Sharpton would be a surprise guest.] During the months that Sharpton was secretly recording Buonanno, he was simultaneously agitating for a role in a lucrative concert tour featuring Michael Jackson and his brothers. Though Don King was involved in the promotion of the Victory Tour of stadiums in the U.S. and Canada, Sharpton argued that the Jacksons were not giving enough back to the community that supported them since their days on the black chitlin circuit. In the face of boycott threats, Sharpton was named to head the Jackson tours Pride Patrol, a

hastily assembled community outreach program. In his autobiography, Sharpton wrote that he was given a $500,000 budget to cover the distribution of free tickets during the 55-concert tour. He also claimed to have used some of the funds to make donations and hire poor kids to work security in the 22 cities the Jacksons visited. At one tour stop, a sweatsuit-clad Sharpton and some Pride Patrol enlistees presented Jackson with a framed certificate proclaiming that, The Victory Tour Did Not Sell Out. I was later accused of extorting money from the Jacksons, wrote Sharpton, who also was accused of scalping Victory Tour tickets. He denied those charges. Genovese squad members were aware of their informants Victory Tour involvement, since Sharpton was reporting back on his dealings with King. At one point, FBI agents learned that Sharpton could possibly accompany Michael Jackson to Washington, D.C. to meet with

President Ronald Reagan. The prospect of allowing an active

FBI informant to enter the White House--without telling anyone of Sharptons secret status as a cooperator--caused unease with FBI brass. White House records of Jacksons meeting with Reagan, which came two months before the Victory Tour launch, show that Sharpton was not among the singers traveling party that May morning. An FBI source could not recall if investigators asked Sharpton not to attend the South Lawn ceremony, or whether he ultimately did not rate Jacksons guest list. The Victory Tour sinecure came at an opportune time for the unemployed Sharpton since he was not flush--occasional payments from his FBI handler amounted to little more than walkingaround money, as one investigator recalled. In fact, Curington said, Sharpton actually had to borrow money from Buonanno so that he could travel to join the Jackson tour (where promoters only disbursed money after concerts). Curington, who began working with Buonanno in 1975, said that he thought his partner wanted Sharptons help in getting involved with the Victory Tour. Curington said Buonanno also believed Sharpton could somehow help him get a particular artist signed to a music label. When TSG first spoke with Curington last year, he said it was no secret that Buonanno was a wiseguy. He then added, unprompted, I cant say what he did with the Gambinos. A reporter had not previously specified Buonannos crime family affiliation. Buonanno, said Curington, had a low opinion of Sharpton, and called the 300-pound preacher a nose picker behind his back. The gangster, who died of throat cancer in 1998, might have resorted to harsher actions had he ever learned about Sharptons secret life as CI-7.

Armed with Sharptons tapes and other fresh intelligence, the Genovese squad teamed with federal prosecutors to prepare a series of wiretap applications targeting Chin Gigante and his closest aides, including Venero Benny Eggs Mangano, Louis Bobby Manna, Dominick Baldy Dom Canterino, other made men, and crime family associates like Morris Levy. Federal judges in New York City, New Jersey, and upstate New York subsequently granted permission for the wiretapping of numerous telephones and the placement of listening devices inside Genovese social clubs and a series of vehicles used by

Canterino to chauffeur Gigante. Each of those U.S. District Court applications included information gathered via Sharptons briefcase. But not every bugging attempt went smoothly. The squads first attempt to wire Canterinos auto ended disastrously. The Cadillac was parked in front of the hoodlums home when an FBI agent broke into the auto early one morning and drove off with the car (which was to be quickly returned to its spot after the listening device was planted). Piece of cake, the agent radioed to nearby surveillance agents as he drove away in Canterinos ride. Youre burned, replied a panicked NYPD detective who spotted Canterino at the window of his Brooklyn house watching his vehicle get stolen. In retrospect, it was like a Keystone comedy, laughed a former FBI agent who was on Canterinos Gravesend block that day. But it wasnt so funny when it occurred. The Cadillac would later be destroyed in an arson fire, prompting the Genovese squad to seek judicial permission to bug Canterinos new Dodge. The probable cause for the second application included material from Sharptons recordings. When it became clear that Canterino had switched to a third vehicle, another Cadillac, agents got permission to place a listening

device in that car. Again, the court application relied, in part, on Sharptons taped conversations with Buonanno. Canterino, an ex-longshoreman who had a forearm tattoo of an anchor with the word Mom inscribed within it, later told Genovese squad investigators he could not fathom how the bureau succeeded in bugging his car (albeit on the third try). Sitting in a Brooklyn diner with FBI agents

Pearson, Canterino Michael Ross and Ronald Parker said he prided himself as being an excellent burglar, and it was his own anti-theft device which he had installed in the automobile, according to an FBI interview report. The Genovese squad also received court authorization to wiretap phones in Levys Manhattan office and his farm. Two lines in the Upper East Side residence of Gigantes mistress were also bugged. That home, a townhouse between Park and Madison avenues, was purchased by Levy in 1981 for $520,000. Two years later, he sold the four-story property to Olympia Esposito, with whom Gigante had three children, for just $16,000. The Levy and Esposito wiretaps provided federal investigators with a detailed overview of how the businessman funneled millions in stock, cash, and other assets to Gigantes paramour. The section of the FBI wiretap affidavits containing the fruits of Sharptons cooperation was titled The Extortion From and Control of Morris Levy. The initial November 1984 affidavit, which had to be rewritten to further mask Sharptons identity, noted that the confidential informant had been providing information to the bureau for more than a year. The source learned of the information provided to investigators through conversations with members of four of the LCN families in New York City, as well as in conversations with LCN members from other parts of the United States, according to the affidavit. As detailed in the various affidavits, the informant told FBI agents about Gigantes control over Levy, how the mob associate was a source of ready cash for the Genovese gang, and that the only way Levy could escape the Mafias clutch was via his own death. The material placed in the

affidavit was lifted directly from the bureaus summaries of Sharptons meetings with Buonanno. While most of the FBI affidavits made it seem that CI-7 was the primary source of information about Levy, Gigante, and Pagano, a latter court filing provided a more precise picture of how the

informant operated. That affidavit reported that the snitch was advised by a member of an LCN family about the Genovese family rackets. The electronic surveillance carried out by the Genovese squad eventually proved devastating to Levy, Canterino, and an assortment of wiseguys who would be convicted, in part, based on those surreptitious recordings (for which Sharpton helped establish the probable cause). A month before Levys arrest on federal extortion charges, a pair of FBI agents went to his Roulette Records office to serve a grand jury subpoena for business records. While there, the investigators told Levy he had been the subject of electronic surveillance in the course of the Genovese squad probe. According to an FBI report memorializing the encounter, the agents told Levy that his life may be in jeopardy due to the implication of Olympia Esposito and Vincent Chin Gigante in the criminal investigation stemming from the activities of Levy. Levy, though, made it clear that flipping was not in his future. Remarking that he knew what the rules were, Levy told agents William Confrey and Stephen Steinhauser that he had dealt with wiseguys for 40 years and held no fear for his safety based on these relationships. When the agents replied that he had a choice if he felt threatened, Levy said that, the witness security program was a joke and could not adequately protect witnesses. At the subsequent trial of Levy and Canterino, defense lawyers argued that the judge should direct prosecutors to identify several of the confidential FBI sources cited in wiretap affidavits. That request was denied after a Justice Department prosecutor responded that such a disclosure could result in the murder of the informants.

Defense motions specifically referred to information provided to the bureau by informants dubbed CI-7 and CI-8 in FBI documents. What the lawyers for Levy and his codefendants did not realize, however, was that CI-7 and CI-8 were the same person--Sharpton. Due to a numbering switch, the reverend was referred to as CI-8 in the narrative of some of the FBI affidavits. Defense counsel was not apprised by prosecutors that a single FBI informant had been identified with two separate C-I numbers. Levy was subsequently convicted of two felony counts and sentenced to a decade in prison, while Canterino got a dozen years. In pre-sentencing letters to the judge, Quincy Jones, Willie Nelson, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, and assorted record

label executives saluted Levys charity and loyalty. While free on appeal, Levy died of cancer in May 1990 at his upstate New York home. Canterino, who had survived quadruple bypass surgery, died several years later while in Bureau of Prisons custody, a less bucolic departure point than Levys beloved Sunnyview Farm. With Sharptons help, the Genovese squad also secured a wiretap on the home phones of Federico Fritzy Giovanelli, a family soldier often seen at Gigantes Sullivan Street social club, and two of the Queens wiseguys associates. Tapes from those bugs were subsequently used to help convict Giovanelli, Steven Maltese, and Carmine Gualtiere of a racketeering conspiracy that included the murder of Anthony Venditti, an NYPD detective assigned to the Genovese squad. Each of the men was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, though the portion of the verdict dealing with the Venditti killing was subsequently vacated on appeal. The 34-year-old Venditti, a married father of four young daughters, was shot to death in January 1986 while he and a partner were surveilling Giovanelli. The Genovese soldier was tried three separate times on state murder charges. The first two trials ended in hung juries, while the third case, brought after the federal appeals ruling, resulted in Giovanellis acquittal. Genovese squad agents were actually monitoring Giovanellis phone on the evening of Vendittis murder. They listened as his wife Carol dialed Maltese at 10:57 and yelled, Its all over TV. My kids are going crazy. He shot a cop! She added, Freddy shot a cop! In the calls background, sobbing can be heard. Later that evening, Giovanelli called home while in

police custody and tried to calm his spouse. Babe, he said, you know thats not my style. During a conversation last month, Giovanelli said that the FBI bug resulted in 5000 hours of me speaking with my friends about cooking and other innocuous topics (which, to some degree, is true). Unaware of Sharptons work as an FBI informant, Giovanelli said that he thought the main reason his phone calls were intercepted was because somebody got a broken jaw, a reference to a record distributor who had run afoul of Levy & Co. and, as a result, got beaten by Gaetano Corky Vastola, a member of the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family. The victim, who was being extorted by a coterie of hoodlums, cooperated with the FBI and entered the Witness Security Program. The gravelly-voiced Giovanelli, who has survived a couple of aneurysms and heart valve replacement surgery, suggested that a reporter look at the good side of Sharpton instead of plumbing the reverends past. I feel sorry for him, Giovanelli laughed. Heres a guy who lost a hundred pounds and along comes a Bastone wielding a bastone to ruin things. In Italian, a bastone is a wooden cane. While Joseph and Daniel Pagano were not primary targets of the Genovese squad, the father-son combo was the focus of a parallel probe being conducted by investigators with the New York State Attorney Generals Office. And like their federal counterparts, the AGs Organized Crime Task Force (OCTF) would also benefit from Sharptons work as an informant. Like the Genovese squad, state OCTF agents believed that listening devices would produce incriminating evidence against the Paganos and members of their Genovese crew. According to investigators with both task forces, a close relationship existed between the groups--so much so that several Genovese squad members ended up working for the state task force,

which was headquartered in Westchester County, a Pagano stronghold. When the state OCTF sought court approval in January 1986 to place a listening device in Joseph Paganos Rockland County home, they cited a confidential FBI source who told his handlers that the mafioso conducted business in the basement of the Monsey house. In interviews, Genovese squad and state OCTF investigators identified Sharpton as the informant who provided a firsthand description of Paganos residence. As expected, that listening device--and several other OCTF bugs--generated a wealth of evidence against the Pagano crew. Joseph was overheard reminiscing about the days when he moved kilos of heroin with Anthony Fat Tony Salerno, a fellow son of East Harlem who preceded Chin Gigante as Genovese family boss. Pagano was also recorded giving a succinct analysis of his son Daniels executive limitations: Hes an opener, not a closer, Pagano said. The OCTF investigation, which spanned more than two years, ended in June 1989 with the indictment of five Genovese crime family figures on enterprise corruption charges. But only the younger Pagano ended up in the dock. His father, who had been seriously ill during the course of the OCTF probe, died two months before a grand jury accused his son and other underlings of engaging in mob staples like loan sharking, extortion, and gambling. Each defendant subsequently pleaded guilty to various criminal charges, so there was no public presentation of evidence against the men. Which meant that OCTF prosecutors did not have to further expound on the indictments allegation that Daniel Pagano solicited the use of a bank account of the National Youth Movement to launder money. Sharpton, who controlled that bank account, was not charged in connection with the Pagano investigation. *** According to Sharptons most recent book, following the Victory Tour, King decided that I should become a major concert promoter, working alongside him to become to the music industry what he was to the boxing world. Sharpton--who formed a Georgia-based company, Hit Bound, Inc., to handle music promotions--wrote that he was also being urged by Michael

Jackson and James Brown to enter the concert business. But, Sharpton declared, he opted for the more uncertain path of civil rights activism, eschewing the prospect of big stacks of dollars that could be very helpful in raising a family. Sharptons unique brand of activism included working with Curington to line up the endorsements of several prominent black ministers for Senator Al DAmato, the conservative Republican incumbent then being challenged in the 1986 general election by liberal Democrat Mark Green. The ministers backing DAmato included Bishop Frederick Douglas Washington, whom Sharpton has described as one of his spiritual mentors. The endorsements came several months after the The New Republic reported that DAmato had privately referred to the residents of public housing projects as animals. In return for the endorsements, DAmato--who was easily reelected--steered a $500,000 federal grant to Curington and Sharpton for the establishment of an anti-drug program in Brooklyn. According to a grant application, Curington, whose prior narcotics experience landed him on a DEA list of Class 1 traffickers, was slated to serve as the programs executive director. Sharpton and Curington, the application noted, also planned to secure an additional $750,000 in corporate support from eight record labels. The duos plan foundered, however, when officials at a Brooklyn church changed their mind about allowing a drug treatment facility to operate from a church building. As a result, the $500,000 grant was later canceled. At DAmatos request, Sharpton also arranged for Coretta Scott King to make a surprise appearance at the August 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans, according to a law enforcement official. Martin Luther King, Jr.s widow, who Sharpton has called my mentor, sat in Vice President George Bushs box, where she was greeted with a kiss by Barbara Bush.

Sharpton apparently forgot about the six-figure DAmato handout when he was penning his latest book. Claiming that his public positions were free of unseemly calculations, he claimed, I never asked for public funding for anything, so there

would be no confusion about my motives. By the time Sharptons uncertain path led him to join the Tawana Brawley team in midDecember 1987--when he demanded the arrest of the "racial beasts who are terrorizing the state"--his four-year-long cooperation with law enforcement agencies had almost run its course. It had been five months since ex-FBI Agent Joe Spinelli steered him to the Los Angeles federal prosecutor who had to position himself at a pay phone when Sharpton was ready to drop a dime. And Sharptons work on behalf of the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office--also at Spinellis urging--was snuffed out in its infancy in January 1988. But while the Brawley affair left Sharpton radioactive for law enforcement, the same could not be said for his underworld contacts. Beginning in late-1987 and carrying through the following year, Sharpton and Curington worked together on behalf of Sugar Hill Records to broker a multimillion dollar deal with MCA Records in Los Angeles. In an interview, Curington valued the contract at $6.5 million, adding that he and Sharpton stood to split a hefty six-figure fee for arranging the deal with MCA

chairman Irving Azoff.

Sugar Hill was founded by Joe Robinson, a music industry veteran who, strapped for cash, took money from Morris Levy in return for a piece of the fledgling rap/R&B label. Like Levy and many of his peers in the rough-and-tumble record business, Robinson was unburdened by business ethics. He was as greasy as a pork chop, said Curington. The Sugar Hill-MCA deal eventually collapsed amid claims that Robinson had engaged in various financial malefactions. Which, of course, did not relieve the Sugar Hill boss of his financial obligation to Curington and Sharpton. At least that was how the duo saw it. Enveloped in debt and hurting for cash, Robinson nonetheless began getting a stream of unannounced visitors at Sugar Hills Englewood, New Jersey studio demanding that he pay Sharpton and Curington. On one occasion, Joe Bana Buonanno showed up with Genovese associate Mike Milano and confronted Robinson, who called a local cop to complain that he was being muscled by the men. Edward Stempinski, then an Englewood Police Department detective, recalled catching Buonanno and Milano at Sugar Hill, remarking that the duo didnt look like they should be going into a rappers studio. During a trip to Englewood, Curington was busted after punching one of Robinsons sons. Stempinski, now retired, said that in a post-arrest interview, Curington identified himself as vice president of Sharptons National Youth Movement.

Sharpton, who was then living in Englewood with his wife and two young daughters, also took part in the debt collection effort, visiting Sugar Hill to hector Robinson about payment, said Stempinski. Referring to Joe Robinson, Curington admitted, in a TSG interview, to threatening the Sugar Hill boss over the money owed to him and Sharpton, adding that he warned Robinson that he would burn down Sugar Hills headquarters if they were not paid. Curington also admitted that he once went to Sugar Hill intending to fuck up Robinson, though he did not arrive solo. Curington said he was accompanied to the studio by Buonanno, Wassel DeNoia, and Daniel Pagano. In an interview in his Manhattan apartment, DeNoia said that he could not recall traveling to the Sugar Hill studios to lean on Robinson. Now 88, time and illness have stripped the hulking

former bookmaker of his menace, though not his affection for Sharpton and Joseph Pagano, a close friend since their youth in East Harlem. DeNoia called Sharpton a really dear friend of mine, saying that they met when Sharpton handled music promotions. He recalled

that Sharpton became very close to his boyhood friend, adding that the activist loved Joe Pagano. Stempinski, who shared details of the hoodlum caravan going westbound over the George Washington Bridge with several organized crime investigators, was surprised to discover that Sharpton had apparently learned of law enforcements monitoring of the Sugar Hill matter. The detective arrived at work one day to find a remarkable two-page letter had been mailed to him by Sharpton, who was then eight months into his defense of Tawana Brawley. Stempinski--who had never met or spoken with the activist--concluded that Sharpton sent the out-of-the-blue missive to him at the direction of Curington, whom Stempinski had been cultivating as a source. Curington, Stempinski recalled, dropped dimes on Sharpton, including a heads-up that the reverend was helping DAmato orchestrate Coretta Scott Kings appearance at the 1988 Republican National Convention. The August 23, 1988 correspondence stated that Sharpton and Curington had been retained as consultants by Robinson, who thought he was being unduly and unfairly treated for racial reasons by MCA. The pair was hired, Sharpton wrote, due to their MCA contacts and standing in the black music community. Sharpton then recounted Curingtons immersion in the Sugar Hill-MCA deal, a diligence which came at the expense of other private business and community efforts with which the duo was involved. After noting that Robinson had leveled accusations of abuse against Curington, Sharpton dismissed those claims as false, stating that the Sugar Hill owner fabricated the allegations with the intent of not meeting his obligations to me or Mr. Currington. Sharpton declared that

he would not tolerate our movement, friends, co-workers, and associates to be prostituted and mis-used in this manner. Sharptons letter to the Englewood detective concluded with the promise that, I can assure you I

legally and publically (marches, press am prepared to move conferences) to get my money, Mr. Curringtons money, and the movements money. I hope these activities will be solved soon. Sharptons aggressive, preemptive strike made his position clear: He and Curington were victims of Robinsons perfidy. And if anyone doubted that, they should prepare to endure the raucous Brawley-type protests for which Sharpton was becoming notorious. As for menacing guys showing up at Sugar Hills studio, well, Sharpton's letter did not address the sticky subject of all those Italian-American debt collectors, a group that included Buonanno, the mafioso who, years earlier, had been secretly taped by CI-7. Sharpton told TSG that he could not recall writing to the New Jersey detective. Asked why an assortment of wiseguys would have been pressuring Robinson to pay a debt owed to him and Curington, Sharpton replied, What makes you think I knew about that? *** Two years before signing with MSNBC in 2011, Al Sharpton traveled to Los Angeles to try and sell a daytime TV show that would have starred him in a Judge Judy-type role. His partner in the Judge Sharpton endeavor was James Rosemond, a music industry executive who paid

airfare, hotel, and other expenses related to the proposal (which did not ultimately

secure a Hollywood green light). Like many of Sharptons prior business acquaintances, Rosemond, too, had a nickname: Jimmy Henchman. At the time of the Judge Sharpton pitch, Rosemond, who managed hip-hop artists, already possessed a lengthy rap sheet and had served nearly seven years in prison for various weapons and narcotics convictions. He also happened to head a large bi-coastal cocaine trafficking ring. The notorious drug kingpin is now serving life in prison for that criminal operation, proceeds from which Rosemond used to cover Judge Sharpton costs. In recent months, as Sharpton has been promoting his latest book, interviewers have not bothered to ask about Rosemond or any other gangsters to whom the civil rights leader has been linked. Instead, Oprah Winfrey, Wendy Williams, Matt Lauer, and others have focused on Sharptons trim figure, his growing political influence, and Brawley, the albatross that hangs around his neck like Flavor Flavs clock. Viewers of these Q&A sessions learned that daily cardio workouts and a healthy diet (no meat, two pieces of whole wheat toast for breakfast, and no food after 6 PM) can help a guy shed 54.8 percent of his body weight.

When he was last profiled on 60 Minutes, Sharpton--stately in his tailored suits--was filmed

cigar club he inside the private Manhattan frequents, as well as at a Sunday church pulpit. I like folk that been knocked down and shamed and disgraced and somehow God picked them up and cleaned them off and brought em back, he told the cheering congregation. Near the conclusion of the 12-minute piece, correspondent Lesley Stahl introduced investigative reporter Wayne Barrett, who began covering Sharptons exploits more than 30 years earlier, when the activist was involved in Brooklyn political campaigns. Sharpton, Barrett said, was in the civil rights business. I dont think hes a civil rights leader. Barrett then wondered, considering Sharptons tawdry history, Would anybody else be able to transcend that and be this larger than life figure? He has, Stahl chirped. Only because we let him, replied Barrett.

The Rebut t al . . .
U.S. News

04. 08. 14 AlSharpton:ImNoSnitch The r ever end t el l s The Dai l y Beasthe neverr at t ed outt he M af i at ot he FBI ,butThe Sm oki ng Gun,whi ch m ade t he char ges,i s st i cki ng t oi t s st or y.
If I brought down the Mob, the Rev. Al Sharpton demanded on Monday, I want my ticker tape parade. The civil rights activist and MSNBC host was referring, facetiously, to TheSmokingGun.coms meticulously detailed, epic account, rife with court documents and law enforcement sourcing, of Sharptons apparent four-year career in the 1980s as one of the FBIs more valuable mafia informantsa narrative that can best be described as The Sopranos meets American Hustle. Its a colorful chronicle that features con men and homicidal hoodlums with nicknamesas the Smoking Gun points outsuch as Benny Eggs, Chin, Fritzy, Corky, and Baldy Dom. Also in the mix are famous performers like James Brown, the young Sharptons mentor and benefactor; Michael Jackson, Sammy Davis Jr., and rascally boxing promoter Don King, another associate of the fledgling Baptist minister. The latest inconvenient revelation is another chapter of Sharptons checkered past coming back to haunt himor maybe just throwing into sharp relief his amazing rise from rabble-rousing street preacher to member of the Democratic Party establishment as well as anchor of his own weeknight MSNBC program, PoliticsNation. MSNBC had no response to the Smoking Guns story. Yet a screaming headline on the Drudge ReportSHARPTON WAS FBI MOB RAT was hardly an auspicious way to begin a momentous week. On Friday, President Obamawho has hosted Sharpton repeatedly at the White House, including at a recent dinner for the president of Franceis scheduled to address the civil rights entrepreneurs National Action Network convention at Manhattans Times Square Sheraton, where Education Secretary Arne Duncan and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, among other political and media luminaries, are also expected to kiss the ring during the 4-day confab.

The gover nm entwas t r yi ng t o ent r ap a ci vi lr i ght s ki d on som e cr i m es t hatwer e nevercom m i t t ed,and f ai l ed t ot r ap hi m.

That st he unsai d par tofi t :W hy di dt hey go af t erShar pt on i nt he f i r stpl ace? W hatwas t he cr i m e?

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Sharpton called the Smoking Guns storyversions of which have been circulating in the media for the past 26 yearsembellished, a stretch, and crazy. He denied that he ever knowingly snitched on wiseguys for the FBI. But William Bastone, the Smoking Guns founder and the storys author, insisted: If he didnt think he was an informant, the Genovese squad of the FBI and NYPD officials sure knew him to be an informant. He was paid to be an informant, he carried a briefcase with a recording device in it, and he made surreptitious tape recordings of a Gambino crime family member 10 separate times as an informant. He did it at the direction of the FBI, he was prepped by the FBI, was handed the briefcase by the FBI and was debriefed after the meetings. Thats an informant. Bastone reported that Sharpton secretly taped Gambino family member Joseph Buonanno, who went by Joe Bana, in ten face-to-face meetings as the mobster gossiped about blackmail, mob executions, shylocking and other criminal activities under the leadership of Vincent Chin Gigante. Sharpton, by most accounts a skilled interlocutor who knew how to play dumb and draw out his conversation partners, received small payments from his FBI handlers walking around money, Bastone wrote. He cites several other instances in which Sharptons recordings and other tips, based on his business and social contacts with members of four of New Yorks five major crime families, led to wiretaps and convictions of key mobsters. One of them, Genovese soldier Federico Fritzy Giovanelli, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for racketeering, in large measure because of court-approved wiretaps obtained with the help of Sharptons information. Giovanelli, now 82 and three years out of prison, was in a joking mood when Bastone asked his reaction to the televisions hosts hidden role in his prosecution: Poor Sharpton, he cleaned up his life and you want to ruin him, Fritzy chided Bastone with a laugh. Indeed, at 59, Sharpton has proved himself a miracle-worker in the art of reinventionor, as he put it on Monday, Ive been able to make the transition, but I did it on my own. He has, for one thing, shed half his 300-pound body weight since his troublemaking days as an angry outsider and exchanged those slovenly tracksuits for elegantly tailored duds. Hardly anyone, certainly no polite person, ever mentions the Tawana Brawley hoax anymore. On Monday, however, Sharpton found himself doing energetic damage control regarding the Smoking Guns story. In interviews, he portrayed himself as a concerned citizen who, as a selfdescribed civil rights kid of 29, reached out to the Feds after his life was threatened by mobsters, in order to expose a criminal conspiracy in the music business to cheat African American performers and promoters out of fair compensation. He did so, he argued, at the risk of life and limband certainly theres little doubt what might have happened to him if his gangster contacts thought he was dropping a dime on them. Even Bastone seemed to acknowledge that with some of the targeted mob figures alive and kicking,

simple prudence might make Sharpton believe he should continue to deny a secret arrangement with the FBI and stick to the cover story he included in his 1996 autobiography, Go and Tell Pharaoh, and last years best-seller, The Rejected Stone. Yes, youd want to keep that on the QT, Bastone said. But time has moved on from when he did it. Perhaps the danger has subsided. Still, Barone said such concerns dont justify Sharptons going out of his way to deny it. I think they take a lot of leaps here, Sharpton said about the Smoking Gun, which asserted that the young activist was flipped by the FBI and coerced into being an informant after blundering into a sting operation in which an undercover agent, pretending to be a drug lord, got him on videotape apparently countenancing the idea of taking a 10 percent cut for helping in the importation of pure coke at $35,000 a kilo. But the Smoking Gun concedes that a successful prosecution would have been iffy, at best, based on the video, in which Sharpton merely nodded, said I hear you, and speculated on the market needs of an unnamed buyer: If hes gonna do it, hell do it much more than that. For years Sharpton has claimed that far from being intimidated by the FBI into becoming an informant, he dared the agents, Indict me. That never happened. The government was trying to entrap a civil rights kid on some crimes that were never committed, and failed to trap him, Sharpton said on Monday. Thats the unsaid part of it: Why did they go after Sharpton in the first place? What was the crime? He added: The one interesting thing that were looking at, three decades later, is that no one can identify, with all of the documents Bastones got, what it is they came after me for? There is no crime here.

Now for the evidence...