Suspicious fires destroyed Al Sharpton's critical financial records on two separate occasions, once while he was running for mayor of New York City in 1997, and again as he was running for president in 2003, resulting in his failure to comply with tax and campaign filing laws, the National Review reported.
The first fire, immediately labeled "suspicious" by investigators, began on April 10, 1997 in a hair-and-nail salon below Sharpton's campaign headquarters. The "heavy volume of fire on arrival," along with many of the doors being unlocked after hours, led the New York Fire Department to label the incident as suspicious in its report.
At the time, Sharpton told Newsday that his entire campaign operation was destroyed, including computers, files, and campaign records, but a source close to the investigation told the National Review that the reverend's office was mostly empty and the damage was not severe.
Sharpton eventually missed deadlines for filing taxes and campaign disclosures, claiming the destruction of records prevented him from filing on time. He finally filed his forms a year later, and despite violating a legal requirement and facing a $10,000 fine for not filing campaign disclosure forms on time, he managed to get off with only a $100 late fee, according to National Review.
He filed his tax returns months later on August 15, claiming he made between $50,000 and $60,000 that year. A New York Daily News report alleged that Sharpton owed $100,000 in overdue taxes and fines, according to the National Review. In September 1997, Sharpton was accused by the New York City Campaign Finance Board of accepting more political contributions than allowed by the Campaign Finance Act. Sharpton's nonprofit, the National Action Network, owed more than $15,000 in 1997, according to a federal tax lien assessed in 2005.
Fast forward to Jan. 23, 2003, just one day after Sharpton filed to create a presidential exploratory committee, when another fire caused significant damage at National Action Network's Madison Avenue office.
The fire was initially coded as suspicious by first responders, and designated as "NFA [Not Fully Ascertained] - Heat from electrical equipment (extension cords)" on the incident report. It was eventually determined to be an accident, but the National Review points out a number of unusual occurrences surrounding the fire and investigation.
"James Kelty, a supervising fire marshal who responded to the 2003 fire, tells NRO he was unexpectedly relieved from the fire investigation," reported National Review. "'I was on the fire, and then I wasn't on the fire; I was on the fire scene, and then I was no longer at the fire scene,' he says, adding that it was unusual. When NRO told him that the investigative report was only six pages long and accompanied by 38 photographs, Kelty said: 'Big fires and fires involving prominent people are generally much more exhaustive. Thirty-eight photos are a drop in the bucket, especially given Sharpton's notoriety and given the fact that he was running for U.S. president.'"
The maintenance man who reported the fire, Joseph Livingston, an immigrant who was living illegally in the U.S. at the time after overstaying his visa, was extremely loyal and dependent upon Sharpton, who reportedly paid him in cash under the table.
While it's normal for fire marshals to speak with maintenance men to collect information, Kelty told the National Review that Livingston only spoke with investigators "in the presence of his attorney, Michael Hardy," who is also Sharpton's lawyer. Kelty told the National Review that it is "extremely unusual" for a maintenance man to have an attorney present when talking to investigators.
Furthermore, National Review points out that there are a number of inconsistencies in Livingston's account, which suggest he must have caught the fire almost immediately, but according to the official report and pictures, the fire had grown massive.
"These interviews are not consistent," Kelty told the National Review. "Usually, any maintenance person or any super, if an incident like this did occur - they notice that there's some kind of fire by the reception area. They'd normally tell you they'd rush to try to get something to put the fire out, still call the fire department, but try to extinguish the fire. Regardless, we're normally there around four to five minutes after the transmission of a fire alarm, and we have a heavy volume of fire upon arrival at National Action Network. That's not normal fire behavior. To me, it strikes me as odd. It doesn't mean that could not have happened, but it's unusual."
Another unnamed source told the National Review, "It's very fishy. It doesn't make sense, and it never made sense. The fact that Livingston was living there - I think probably Sharpton or somebody in that camp said, 'Just make this a fire.' After the fires, there was a lot of discussion about, 'We can't do this,' asking for delays because our paperwork was there in the filing cabinets, and they allegedly got destroyed. A lot of pertinent paperwork and accounting stuff was there. Now, everyone who knew J.D. knew that he was a great individual and a nice human being, but I also think he was desperate, in the sense that he needed Sharpton to survive. And that makes me concerned that if you have that kind of reliance on an individual, maybe things went awry."
The National Action Network raised money to rebuild and Sharpton continued his presidential campaign, "violating several laws, many of which were related to poor record-keeping and book-keeping, according to an April 2009 FEC conciliation agreement," noted the National Review.
Sharpton's poor record keeping later in part led to the FEC determining the National Action Network and other entities had illegally paid for travel expenses incurred by his campaign.
"The FEC's conciliation agreement says that $65,000 in campaign expenses charged to Sharpton's personal credit card came from unknown sources. It also says an additional $209,677 in unreported in-kind contributions came from Sharpton's for-profit entity Rev. Al's Productions," National Review wrote.
Carl Redding, a former Sharpton staffer who has publicly criticized him, told the National Review that the whole incident has always been suspicious.
"All I could do was just go by whatever the police reports would say. . . . It always seemed like it just died out. There was never any serious questions raised about what happened in both fires."
The FEC eventually "fined him $5,500 for failing to file his statements of candidacy on time, and an additional $208,000 for violating campaign-finance laws by 'failing to file complete and accurate reports disclosing all of the Committee's receipts and expenditures' and 'knowingly accepting excessive and prohibited in-kind contributions," noted the National Review. "It also fined National Action Network and Sharpton $77,000 for making prohibited contributions to his campaign. The FEC's latter conciliation agreement notes that it 'does not establish or mean that any of the violations were knowing and willful.'"
