Al Sharpton was thick as thieves with a notorious drug trafficker when he became an FBI informant — and even convinced then-US Sen. Alfonse D’Amato to get them $600,000 in federal funding for their “anti-drug” program.
The portly preacher had just helped D’Amato win a tough 1986 re-election over Mark Green when he turned to the powerful lawmaker for the funding.
Sharpton’s plan was to use a church-owned Brooklyn building for his program and give control to Robert Curington, who was labeled a Class 1 trafficker by the Drug Enforcement Administration because of his ties to major heroin dealers, according to The Smoking Gun.
Curington, now 72, was “vice president of industrial affairs” for Sharpton’s National Youth Movement, predecessor to the National Action Network.
They nearly obtained the money, but their plans were derailed when the church backed out, and when news broke about Sharpton’s role in perpetuating the Tawana Brawley kidnapping and rape hoax, sources said.
D’Amato told The Post he never met Curington and had no idea he was in on the plan.
“No way would I have gone near this,” he said. “I was leading the fight against drug kingpins.”
The failed government cash grab came three years after Sharpton became a paid FBI snitch, allegedly to avoid arrest on cocaine charges. He was caught on video discussing a major coke deal — and showed up for a Manhattan meeting with a man he thought was a South American drug lord.
Sharpton instantly agreed to wear a wire to help put away mob bosses and collect dirt on boxing promoter Don King, according to The Smoking Gun.
At the time, he was already pals with Curington, who served two years in prison in the 1970s for possessing a large amount of the heroin-cutting agent mannite.
Curington worked closely with Sharpton when the up-and-coming activist was “young and stupid and broke” and trying to pressure the music industry into spreading money around the black community, Curington told The Smoking Gun.
Sharpton and Curington’s ventures included trying to help Joe Robinson of the Sugar Hill Records label cut a $6.5 million deal with MCA during the late 1980s.
The agreement fell through, but Sharpton and Curington still expected a “hefty, six-figure fee” from Robinson, who called the cops when two mob goons showed up at Robinson’s studio to demand payment, The Smoking Gun reported.
After that call, Sharpton sent a letter to an Englewood, NJ, detective vowing protests if he and Curington weren’t paid. Sharpton now says he doesn’t remember writing it.
Sharpton on Thursday downplayed his relationship with Curington, saying they hadn’t spoken “for many years” and were never friends.
“We were associates and I supported him doing consulting work,” Sharpton said.
He also said he wasn’t initially aware of Curington’s criminal past.