Tawana Brawley Hoax: Steven Pagones Receives First Defamation Payments

The Tawana Brawley hoax is finally coming to a close. Brawley, who accused Steven Pagones of rape in 1987, has started making defamation payments.

According to the NY Post, Pagones recently received $3,764.61 from Brawley. She still owes more than $431,000 in damages.

Mercury News reports that Brawley claimed that she was raped by a gang of white men in 1987. Brawley, who was 15 at the time, claimed that the men sexually assaulted her, wiped their feces on her, and wrote racial slurs over her body.

The case quickly gained national attention but was later determined to be a hoax. Brawley reportedly made up the story to avoid punishment for being out past her curfew.

Pagones sued Brawley, as well as the Rev. Al Sharpton, and attorneys C. Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox, for defamation. Sharpton, Mason and Maddox have all paid (or are paying) their debt back to Pagones.

Brawley was ordered to pay $185,000 in the defamation judgment but has refused to send a check to Pagones until this week. With interest, she now owes him more than $400,000. Brawley has been ordered to pay about $627 per month.

Pagones is happy to see Brawley finally paying for the hoax but said that he would rather receive an apology from the young woman.

Pagones said: “Every week, she’ll think of me… And every week, she can think about how she has a way out — she can simply tell the truth.”

That probably won’t happen, however, as Tawana Brawley still claims that there was no hoax and that she actually was raped by Pagones.