New York – The Rev Al Sharpton, the radical civil rights leader who is now a close ally of President Obama, was a Federal Bureau of Investigation informer who helped to jail a number of Mafia bosses, it has been claimed.
An investigation by the Smoking Gun website claims that the 69-year-old television host and White House regular was “turned” by the FBI after being implicated in a drug deal.
The website said that he agreed to wear a wire tap during conversations with Mob bosses, including leading members of the Genovese crime family, the largest and most feared Mafia outfit in the United States.
A Baptist minister who is said to have been targeted by the FBI because of his extensive contacts in the music and sports industry, as well as the New York underworld, Mr Sharpton has always denied being a “snitch.”
He has said that his only contact with the police was to gather information in order to help drive out drug dealing in the black communities he worked in.
But the Smoking Gun website claimed that interviews with a number of detectives on a joint FBI and police taskforce called the Genovese squad revealed that Mr Sharpton was a valued informer who delivered at least 10 taped conversations that led to the jailing of a number of mobsters.
It also produced internal documents showing that the recordings were used to help gain court approval for further secret taping at gang members’ homes and other places they associated.
Asked why he cooperated with the police, who in public he frequently lambasted, one unnamed former member of the squad said: “He thought he didn’t have a choice,” after being taped by an agent pretending to be a drug dealer apparently agreeing to buy cocaine.
Starting in the mid-1980s with the codename CI-7 – for Covert Investigator number seven – he is said to have operated as a police spy for about four years. (read more)
But the Smoking Gun website claimed that interviews with a number of detectives on a joint FBI and police taskforce called the Genovese squad revealed that Mr Sharpton was a valued informer who delivered at least 10 taped conversations that led to the jailing of a number of mobsters.
It also produced internal documents showing that the recordings were used to help gain court approval for further secret taping at gang members’ homes and other places they associated.
Asked why he cooperated with the police, who in public he frequently lambasted, one unnamed former member of the squad said: “He thought he didn’t have a choice,” after being taped by an agent pretending to be a drug dealer apparently agreeing to buy cocaine.
Starting in the mid-1980s with the codename CI-7 – for Covert Investigator number seven – he is said to have operated as a police spy for about four years. (read more)