P
Patriot Games
Guest
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316660,00.html
Report: Feds Raid Al Sharpton Offices, Subpoena Financial Records, Employees
Thursday, December 13, 2007
NEW YORK - Federal authorities have subpoenaed financial records and
employees in an apparent probe of the Rev. Al Sharpton's 2004 presidential
bid, nonprofit civil rights group, and for-profit businesses, a newspaper
reported Thursday.
As many as 10 Sharpton associates were subpoenaed Wednesday to testify
before a federal grand jury in Brooklyn Dec. 26, his lawyer told the Daily
News.
They were told to provide investigators with financial records from the
campaign and roughly six Sharpton-related businesses, as well as personal
financial documents of Sharpton and his wife, the newspaper said.
The FBI and Internal Revenue Service are seeking the records, which go back
to 2001, according to the Daily News.
A Sharpton spokeswoman did not immediately return phone calls or e-mail
messages early Thursday.
An FBI agent who answered the phone at the agency's New York headquarters
declined to comment, and an agency spokesman did not immediately return a
telephone message. An IRS spokesman did not immediately return phone calls.
"It was like a sting or a raid," said Carl Redding, Sharpton's chief of
staff for eight years during the 1990s. "They converged on everybody."
Redding said FBI agents awoke him at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday with a subpoena to
testify and to bring records to the grand jury, but would not tell him the
reason for the investigation.
Several staffers from the National Action Network, a Sharpton-led civil
rights organization, also got subpoenas to testify, said Sharpton lawyer
Michael Hardy. Sharpton himself did not receive a subpoena, the Daily News
said.
Sharpton spokesman Charlie King said the minister and the National Action
Network were cooperating with the probe. Hardy was sanguine about the
developments.
"I can't think of a time when the Rev. Sharpton wasn't under investigation,"
he said.
Sharpton agreed in 2005 to repay the government $100,000, plus interest, for
taxpayer money he received during his failed effort to win the Democratic
presidential nomination the year before, though he denied wrongdoing.
The Federal Election Commission had determined that he spent more of his own
money on the campaign than the qualifications for federal matching funds
allow.
In 1993, Sharpton pleaded guilty to not filing a state income tax return in
1986.
Report: Feds Raid Al Sharpton Offices, Subpoena Financial Records, Employees
Thursday, December 13, 2007
NEW YORK - Federal authorities have subpoenaed financial records and
employees in an apparent probe of the Rev. Al Sharpton's 2004 presidential
bid, nonprofit civil rights group, and for-profit businesses, a newspaper
reported Thursday.
As many as 10 Sharpton associates were subpoenaed Wednesday to testify
before a federal grand jury in Brooklyn Dec. 26, his lawyer told the Daily
News.
They were told to provide investigators with financial records from the
campaign and roughly six Sharpton-related businesses, as well as personal
financial documents of Sharpton and his wife, the newspaper said.
The FBI and Internal Revenue Service are seeking the records, which go back
to 2001, according to the Daily News.
A Sharpton spokeswoman did not immediately return phone calls or e-mail
messages early Thursday.
An FBI agent who answered the phone at the agency's New York headquarters
declined to comment, and an agency spokesman did not immediately return a
telephone message. An IRS spokesman did not immediately return phone calls.
"It was like a sting or a raid," said Carl Redding, Sharpton's chief of
staff for eight years during the 1990s. "They converged on everybody."
Redding said FBI agents awoke him at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday with a subpoena to
testify and to bring records to the grand jury, but would not tell him the
reason for the investigation.
Several staffers from the National Action Network, a Sharpton-led civil
rights organization, also got subpoenas to testify, said Sharpton lawyer
Michael Hardy. Sharpton himself did not receive a subpoena, the Daily News
said.
Sharpton spokesman Charlie King said the minister and the National Action
Network were cooperating with the probe. Hardy was sanguine about the
developments.
"I can't think of a time when the Rev. Sharpton wasn't under investigation,"
he said.
Sharpton agreed in 2005 to repay the government $100,000, plus interest, for
taxpayer money he received during his failed effort to win the Democratic
presidential nomination the year before, though he denied wrongdoing.
The Federal Election Commission had determined that he spent more of his own
money on the campaign than the qualifications for federal matching funds
allow.
In 1993, Sharpton pleaded guilty to not filing a state income tax return in
1986.