Tawana Brawley Drug Use Found, Investigator Says

NEW YORK —  The head of the Congress of Racial Equality confirmed today that an investigator hired by his group has uncovered evidence of drug use in the case of Tawana Brawley, the black teen-ager who claims she was kidnaped and raped by white men.

The private investigator hired by CORE said in a WKNY radio interview Thursday in Kingston, N.Y., that he had evidence suggesting Brawley was involved in drugs and prostitution during her four-day disappearance last November.

“Our best belief is that Tawana got involved in something initially voluntarily,” said Galen Kelley, a forensic psychologist hired by CORE Executive Director Roy Innis last December. “It had to do with drugs . . . you’d have to define it as prostitution.”

Kelly said he would report his findings to the grand jury in New York City. “That’s the report he has presented to me,” Innis said of Kelley’s comments today from his Brooklyn office. “That drug thing comes up all the time.”