Edition: U.S. / Global

Plaintiff and Sharpton Lawyer Trade Barbs at Brawley Trial

Published: April 2, 1998

The lawyer for the Rev. Al Sharpton traded shouts, shrugs and challenges today with Steven A. Pagones on the second day of cross-examination in the defamation suit that Mr. Pagones is pursuing against Mr. Sharpton and two others in the Tawana Brawley case.

Despite a booming voice that often drowned out the judge's gavel, the lawyer, Michael A. Hardy, seemed unable to fluster Mr. Pagones. Sometimes just a few feet from his face, Mr. Hardy frequently shouted over Mr. Pagones's answers while other lawyers yelled protests on behalf of one or another of the contestants.

At one point, with Mr. Hardy shouting at Mr. Pagones, others at the defense table on their feet and the red-faced judge apparently in a state of confusion, Mr. Pagones's lawyer issued what sounded like an invitation to a schoolyard brawl.

''Tell him to stop raising his voice and physically intimidating the witness,'' Mr. Pagones's lawyer, William E. Stanton, screamed at the judge, S. Barrett Hickman of State Supreme Court. ''If you don't protect the witness, I will.''

The judge admonished the participants against shouting.

But Mr. Pagones rarely backed down. Several times, he called Mr. Hardy a liar for the way he described events years ago, when Mr. Sharpton and Ms. Brawley's other advisers, Alton H. Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason, publicly accused him of raping and assaulting Ms. Brawley, a black woman who claimed in 1987 that she had been attacked and raped by a group of white men.

Mr. Pagones was exonerated in 1988 by a special grand jury that found her claim to have been a hoax. Since then, he has been waiting to face his accusers in a civil suit that he says is intended to clear his reputation.

In one back-and-forth, Mr. Hardy suggested Mr. Pagones might be showing racial bigotry by his resistance to his questions. Mr. Hardy, who is black, said he was entitled to respect as a lawyer ''notwithstanding my race, color or creed.''

''I am an officer of the court,'' Mr. Hardy said.

''So am I, and don't you forget that,'' shot back Mr. Pagones, a former assistant district attorney who is now a lawyer in the State Attorney General's office.

Then Mr. Pagones challenged the lawyer to continue his questioning. ''You have something to do, do it,'' he said. ''Let's go.''

Mr. Hardy labored to show that Mr. Sharpton had behaved reasonably as the spokesman for a 15-year-old girl who said she had been raped. He painstakingly walked Mr. Pagones through long-ago facts, asserting, for example, that Mr. Sharpton had been justifiably alarmed by information he had received about the case, including racial epithets etched on Ms. Brawley's skin.

''If someone repeated that fact, they would not be lying?'' Mr. Hardy asked.

Mr. Pagones agreed.

But he conceded little. When Mr. Hardy asked him hypothetically how he might react if one of his three daughters were found apparently dazed, covered in epithets and feces as Ms. Brawley was, Mr. Pagones answered with fury: ''Why don't you leave my children out of it. You've already affected my life enough.''

Mr. Hardy is to continue his questioning on Thursday and Mr. Pagones, who still faces cross-examination from the other two defendants, is expected to remain on the witness stand through much of next week.

Photo: Outside court during a break yesterday was Steven A. Pagones, third from left. Michael A. Hardy, far right, is the Rev. Al Sharpton's lawyer. (Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times)