Al Sharpton Admits to Working With FBI Agents on Investigation of New York Mobsters in the 1980s, Insists He Was Not an 'Informant' (TWEETS)

The Rev. Al Sharpton admitted this week to working with FBI agents on an investigation of New York mobsters in the 1980s.

But according to the Associated Press, Sharpton maintained that he was never an informant during a news conference on Tuesday.

"I was never told I was an informant with a number," Sharpton said at his office in Harlem, after a report posted on The Smoking Gun surfaced, Monday. "In my own mind, I was not an informant. I was cooperating with an investigation."

Confidential reports from the case that were recently publicized referred to Sharpton as "CI-7," the Associated Press reported.

Rev. Sharpton, who hosts the MSNBC show PoliticsNation, said he had been incorrectly painted as a double-crossing snitch, after tabloid magazines and websites published such headlines as "REV RAT."

Sharpton told the press that he was threatened by mafia members who warned him that he'd be physically harmed if he kept battling for a share in an investment in the music business more than 30 years ago. But he also stressed that he'd written the account in his book "Go and Tell Pharaoh," first published in 1996.

"We were threatened, and that's not a new story," Sharpton explained. "It's in my book."

Sharpton said that he "fought back" against FBI agents that targeted him in a sting.

"[I] said, 'I'm being threatened. These are the kinds of guys you should be going after,'" Sharpton explained.

According to the Smoking Gun's original report, court documents and FBI statements indicated that Sharpton had participated in an investigation of the Genovese crime family, who reportedly had a big-money "stranglehold" on Morris Levy, a music executive.

The FBI reportedly "developed a relationship with a confidential informant, hereafter referred to as 'CI-7,'" who recorded conversations with a mafia member close to Levy.

Sharpton slyly denied allegations that he "ratted" on Twitter, Tuesday.