SHARPTON SAYS TAPE HAS BEEN LEAKED IN SMEAR ATTEMPT

The Rev. Al Sharpton said yesterday that plans to broadcast a tape of a
1983 conversation between him and an undercover government agent posing as
a drug dealer were part of a campaign intended to smear his name in light
of a possible run for the presidency.

"This is nothing but some dirty tricks from some law enforcement
officials," Mr. Sharpton said from Cleveland last night.

The tape, which Mr. Sharpton said would be broadcast tonight on HBO's "Real
Sports with Bryant Gumbel," was part of a government investigation into
whether the boxing promoter Don King had ties with organized crime. It was
not clear last night whether the tape included video.

Messages left with HBO were not immediately returned last evening.

Mr. Sharpton said the taped conversation dated to 1983, when the
self-described mobster Michael Franzese and an undercover F.B.I. agent
posing as a Latin American businessman approached him to discuss promoting
boxing matches and musical events.

Mr. Sharpton said that during the course of the conversation, the
undercover agent began discussing a cocaine deal.

"The guy had come to me. In the middle of conversation he started talking
about how he could cut me in on a cocaine deal," Mr. Sharpton said. "I
didn't know what this guy was on about. I didn't know if he was armed. I
was scared, so I just nodded my head to everything he said and then he left."

A message left with the F.B.I. was not immediately returned late yesterday.

Mr. Sharpton said he did not hear anything more about the conversation
until months later, when federal law enforcement officials confronted him
with the tape.

A 1988 report in New York Newsday, citing unnamed sources, said that once
confronted with the evidence Mr. Sharpton became an informant for the
government, at times wearing a wiretap, a charge Mr. Sharpton called ludicrous.

"This was investigated over and over again," he said last night. "They all
admitted nothing had happened and no charges were ever filed."

Mr. Sharpton said he believed the tape had been leaked by law enforcement
officials to disrupt his potential presidential run in 2004.

"It's a cheap smear campaign, but I think it will end up generating
sympathy for what I have been fighting for all these years against
government abuses in trying to bring down successful minority
businesspeople," he said.

He scheduled a news conference for this morning.