AL SHARPTON owes overdue taxes, other penalties

NEW YORK: Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the New York governor's mansion.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged over the past decade as perhaps the most prominent U.S. civil rights leader, a status that was demonstrated again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.

But he still carries baggage from his early days as a fire-breathing agitator: Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate that Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million (€970,000) in overdue taxes and associated penalties.

Now the U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe that an undeterred Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that civil rights figures have come to expect from the government.

"Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop," he told the AP. "I think that that is why they try to intimidate us."
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Over the past year, Sharpton's lawyers and the staff of his nonprofit group, the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the federal government over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The group has also been trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars it owes for failing to properly maintain payments to the state workers compensation and unemployment insurance funds.

Charlie King, the organization's interim executive director, said both Sharpton and the group he leads were unprepared for their rise in stature in recent years and had trouble dealing with big jumps in donations and income.

"The infrastructure was trying to keep up with that pace, and it was not a perfect fit," he told the AP on Friday. "The National Action Network may not have been perfect, but nothing was going on that was untoward."

He said the organization has new accountants and a new administrative team, and the group recently finally filed long-overdue tax returns.

Sharpton's own debts include $365,558 (€236,485) owed in New York City income tax and $931,397 (€602,534) in unpaid federal income tax, according to a lien filed by the Internal Revenue Service, the federal tax collection agency, last spring. His for-profit company, Rev. Al Communications, owes the state another $175,962 (€113,832) in delinquent taxes.

As for Sharpton's personal tax debt, King said Sharpton has started paying it off but contends that faulty record-keeping by the National Action Network led the government to overestimate his tax liability.

Tax headaches are nothing new for Sharpton. The 53-year-old minister has been assailed over his career for running up big tax debts and failing to abide by rules governing his charities and election committees. He is perpetually being sued for failing to pay his bills.

In December, Sharpton revealed that as many as 10 of his associates had received grand jury subpoenas. A person familiar with the investigation told the AP that the FBI and IRS are probing whether Sharpton or his organization committed tax crimes or violations related to his 2004 presidential campaign, during which he was forced to return public matching funds for breaking fundraising rules.

If any of this worries Sharpton, you would never know it. He is pressing ahead with his latest campaign — an effort to persuade the Justice Department to bring civil rights charges against New York City police detectives who fired 50 shots and killed an unarmed groom as he left his bachelor party.

Over the past few weeks, Sharpton has kept a high profile, promising to lead weekly demonstrations until new charges are brought against police detectives acquitted of manslaughter April 25 in the November 2006 death of Sean Bell.

"He is as focused as ever," said U.S. Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, who has also rallied for police reforms since the Bell case. "He is probably more effective now than he was in the past, than he has ever been."

Sharpton was arrested and spent a few hours in jail Wednesday for being among the marchers who blocked the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the verdict.

On Thursday, Sharpton said he may soon add another cause — the case of three shooting suspects who appeared to have been beaten and kicked by police during an arrest in Philadelphia.

Sharpton has been investigated before, and always walked away clean.

In 1990, he was acquitted of tax fraud and charges that he stole from one of his charities. He followed that up with what was essentially another victory in a tax case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to file a state return.

In the latest probe, the official overseeing the investigation is U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell — the same Brooklyn-based prosecutor whom Sharpton is urging to file criminal charges in the Bell shooting. Campbell's office has said it is reviewing the case but declined to comment further.