Reverend Al Sharpton a One-Time Mafia Associate? Was FBI Informant (Video)
A damning report on TheSmokingGun.com suggests that MSNBC host, the Reverend Al Sharpton, was once a Mob associate-turned FBI snitch.
That report claims Sharpton at one point became involved with the Gambino and Genovese crime families. The FBI allegedly wired Sharpton and had him attend meetings with both groups. Law enforcement agencies claim both families engage in illegal gambling, loansharking and other criminal activities.
The report goes further to suggest that Sharpton played “central roles in a crime family’s operation" and "flipped" when the FBI offered him cocaine.
“Sharpton was secretly recorded in meetings with an FBI undercover agent posing as a wealthy drug dealer seeking to promote boxing matches,” The Smoking Gun’s report alleges. “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.’”
Sharpton contends that he first contacted the FBI in early-1984, immediately after his life was threatened by Salvatore Pisello, a wiseguy with music industry connections.
Pisello was indicted in 1987 on income tax evasion charges in what federal authorities described as a "continuing investigation of payola and organized crime influence in the recording industry. " At the time he was already serving a two-year sentence on unrelated tax evasion charges.
The documents allege that Sharpton went on to extort music labels for funds for his nonprofit organization and to maintain his connections with the mob, all while collecting information for the FBI which were later applied to indictments of several major organized crime figures.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
