Central Park Jogger Case
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The Central Park jogger case (sometimes termed the Central Park Five case) was a criminal case concerning the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a woman who was running in
Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...
in
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
, New York, on April 19, 1989. Crime in New York City was peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the crack epidemic surged. On the night Meili was attacked, dozens of teenagers had entered the park, and there were reports of muggings and physical assaults. Six teenagers were indicted in relation to the Meili assault. Charges against one, Steven Lopez, were dropped after Lopez pleaded guilty to a different assault. The remaining five—Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise (known as the Central Park Five, later the Exonerated Five)—were convicted of the charged offenses and served sentences ranging from seven to thirteen years. More than a decade after the attack, while incarcerated for attacking five other women in 1989,
serial rapist A serial rapist is someone who commits multiple rapes, whether with multiple victims or a single victim repeatedly over a period of time. Some serial rapists target children. The terms ''sexual predator'', ''repeat rape'' and ''multiple offending' ...
Matias Reyes confessed to the Meili assault and said he was the only actor; DNA evidence confirmed his involvement. The convictions against McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise were vacated in 2002; Lopez's convictions were vacated in July 2022. From the outset the case was a topic of national interest. Initially, it fueled public discourse about New York City's perceived lawlessness, criminal behavior by youths, and violence toward women. After the exonerations, the case became a prominent example of
racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the offender profiling, selective enforcement or selective prosecution based on race or ethnicity, rather than individual suspicion or evidence. This practice involves discrimination against minority pop ...
,
discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...
, and inequality in the legal system and the media. All five defendants sued the City of New York for
malicious prosecution Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. Like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action ( civil or crim ...
,
racial discrimination Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their Race (human categorization), race, ancestry, ethnicity, ethnic or national origin, and/or Human skin color, skin color and Hair, hair texture. Individuals ...
, and
emotional distress In medicine, distress is an aversive state in which a person is unable to completely adapt to difficult situations and their resulting effects and shows maladaptive behaviors. It can be evident in the presence of various phenomena, such as inapp ...
; the city settled the suit in 2014 for $41 million.


Attacks

At 9:00p.m. on April 19, 1989, a group of an estimated 20 to 32 teenagers who lived in
East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem, or , is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City, north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fifth Avenue to the west, and the East and Harlem Rivers to the eas ...
entered
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
's
Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...
at an entrance in
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
, near Central Park North. Some of the group committed several attacks, assaults, and robberies against people who were either walking, biking, or jogging in the northernmost part of the park near the reservoir, and victims began to report the incidents to police. Within the North Woods, between 102nd and 105th Street, assailants were reported attacking several cyclists, hurling rocks at a cab, and attacking a pedestrian, whom they robbed of his food and beer and left unconscious. The teenagers roamed south along the park's East Drive and the 97th Street transverse, between 9:00 and 10:00p.m. Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9:00 and 10:00p.m. Michael Vigna, a competitive bike rider, testified that, at about 9:05 p.m., he was hassled by a group of boys, one of whom tried to punch him. At about 9:15 p.m., Antonio Diaz, who had been walking in the park near 105th Street, was knocked to the ground by teenagers, who stole his bag of food and bottle of beer. And Gerald Malone and Patricia Dean, riding on a
tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which two or more animals, machines, or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. ''Tandem'' can also be used more generally to refer to any group of persons or objects w ...
, said that a group of boys tried to block their path on East Drive south of 102nd Street at about 9:15 p.m.; Malone said that he and Dean sped towards the boys, causing them to scatter, though Dean said that a few grabbed at her; the couple called police after reaching a call box. At least some of the group of teenagers traveled farther south to the area around the reservoir, and, there, four male joggers were "set upon" between 9:25 and 9:50p.m. David Lewis testified that he was attacked and robbed about 9:25–9:40p.m. Robert Garner said he was assaulted at about 9:30p.m. David Good testified he was attacked at about 9:47p.m. And, between 9:40 and 9:50, John Loughlin was "knocked to the ground, kicked, punched, and beaten with a pipe and stick"; he sustained "significant but not life-threatening injuries". At a pretrial hearing in October 1989, a police officer testified that when Loughlin was found, he was bleeding so badly that he "looked like he was dunked in a bucket of blood".


Rape of Trisha Meili

Patricia "Trisha" Ellen Meili, a 28-year-old, was going for a regular run in Central Park shortly before 9:00p.m. While jogging, she was knocked down, dragged nearly off the roadway, and violently physically and sexually assaulted. About four hours later at 1:30 am, she was found naked, gagged, tied, and covered in mud and blood in a shallow ravine about 300 feet north of the 102nd Street Crossing, a wooded area of the park. The first policeman who saw her said: "She was beaten as badly as anybody I've ever seen beaten. She looked like she was tortured." Meili was so badly injured that she was in a coma for 12 days, not awakening until May 1, according to a May 3 interview with her doctor. She had severe
hypothermia Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe ...
, severe brain damage, severe
hemorrhagic shock Hypovolemic shock is a form of shock caused by severe hypovolemia (insufficient blood volume or extracellular fluid in the body). It can be caused by severe dehydration or blood loss. Hypovolemic shock is a medical emergency; if left untreated, ...
, loss of 75–80 percent of her blood, and
internal bleeding Internal bleeding (also called internal haemorrhage) is a loss of blood from a blood vessel that collects inside the body, and is not usually visible from the outside. It can be a serious medical emergency but the extent of severity depends on b ...
. Her
skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...
had been fractured so badly that her left eye was dislodged from its
socket Socket may refer to: Mechanics * Socket wrench, a type of wrench that uses separate, removable sockets to fit different sizes of nuts and bolts * Socket head screw, a screw (or bolt) with a cylindrical head containing a socket into which the hexag ...
, which in turn was fractured in 21 places. Meili was not identified for about 24 hours, and it took days for the police to retrace her movements of that night. By the time of the trial of the first three suspects in June 1990, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' characterized the attack on the jogger as "one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980's".


Arrests and investigation


Arrests of Lopez, McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana and Wise

Police took custody of Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both 14 years of age, at approximately 10:15p.m. on
Central Park West Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, ...
and 102nd Street. Steven Lopez, 15, was also arrested within an hour of several other attacks being reported to police. He was also interrogated. Antron McCray and Yusef Salaam, both 15 years of age, were brought in for questioning later that day (April 20). They had been identified by other youths as participants in, or present at, attacks on other victims in Central Park. Korey Wise (then known as Kharey Wise), 16, accompanied Salaam for questioning, because they were friends, but was questioned himself. Four of the six suspects, Salaam, Wise, Richardson, and Lopez, lived at the Schomburg Plaza, a mixed-income housing complex at the northeast corner of Central Park; two lived further north of there. Analysis indicated that none of the suspects' DNA matched either of the two DNA samples collected from the crime scene (from the jogger's cervix and running sock), but results were reported as "inconclusive" by the police.


Confessions

The videotaped confessions started on April 21, after the detectives finished unrecorded interrogations during which the suspects were in custody for at least seven hours. Santana, McCray, and Richardson made video statements in the presence of parents. Wise made several statements unaccompanied by any parent, guardian or counsel. Lopez was interviewed on videotape in the presence of his parents on April 21, 1989, beginning at 3:30a.m. He named others of the group by first names in the group attacks on other persons but denied any knowledge of the female jogger. None of the six had defense attorneys during the interrogations or videotape process. McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana and Wise told police they had been part of a makeshift group of about 30 people, some of whom had committed various crimes, some of who had merely observed those crimes. According to a later statement by District Attorney Nancy Ryan, " l five implicated themselves in a number of the crimes which had occurred in the park." While the accounts offered of the crimes beside the rape were accurate, their accounts of the rape contained discrepancies as to "when, where and how it happened." Only Wise made any statement about the different times and locations of the jogger attack, and detectives had taken Wise to the park to observe the crime scene before he made his videotaped confession. None of the five said that he had raped the jogger, but each confessed to having been an accomplice—each youth said that he had only helped restrain the jogger, or touched her sexually, while one or more others had raped her. Their confessions varied as to who they identified as having participated in the rape, including naming several youths who were never questioned. In his untaped confession, Salaam went the furthest in admitting some culpability, claiming to have struck the jogger with a pipe at the beginning of the incident. Although four suspects, all except Lopez and Salaam, confessed on videotape in the presence of a parent or guardian (who had generally not been present during the interrogations), each of the four retracted his statement within weeks. Together they claimed that they had been intimidated, lied to, and coerced by police into making
false confession A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogatio ...
s. While the confessions were videotaped, the hours of interrogation that preceded the confessions were not. When taken into custody, Salaam told the police he was 16 years old and showed them identification to that effect. If a suspect had reached 16 years of age, his parents or guardians no longer had a right to accompany him during police questioning, or to refuse to permit him to answer any questions. After Salaam's mother arrived at the station, she insisted that she wanted a lawyer for her son, and the police stopped the questioning. He neither made a videotape nor signed the earlier written statement, but the court ruled to accept it as evidence before his trial. Detective Tom McKenna falsely told Salaam that his fingerprints had been found on the victim's clothing; McKenna reported that Salaam subsequently confessed to being present at the scene of the rape. Years later, Salaam said, "I would hear them beating up Korey Wise in the next room", and "they would come and look at me and say: 'You realize you're next.' The fear made me feel really like I was not going to be able to make it out." Two weeks after their confessions, each of the suspects recanted. They argued that their statements were coerced by police and that their rights to counsel and ''Miranda'' warnings had been violated.


April 21 press conference

On April 21, senior police investigators held a press conference to announce having apprehended about 20 suspects in the attacks of a total of nine people in Central Park two nights before and began to offer their theory of the attack and rape of the female jogger. Her name was withheld as a victim of a sex crime. The police said up to 12 youths were believed to have attacked the jogger. New York City senior detectives said the term "wilding" was used by the suspects when describing their actions to police. This account of the term "wilding" was soon disputed by investigative reporter Barry Michael Cooper, who said that it originated in a police detective's misunderstanding of the suspects' use of the phrase "doing the wild thing", lyrics from rapper Tone Loc's hit song " Wild Thing".Cooper, Barry Michael (May 9, 1989) "The Central Park Rape" in ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
''.


Media coverage

At a time of concern about crime in general in the city, which was suffering high rates of assaults, rapes, and homicides, these attacks provoked great outrage, particularly the brutal rape of the female jogger. It took place in the public park that is "mythologized as the city's verdant, democratic refuge".
New York Governor The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor ha ...
Mario Cuomo Mario Matthew Cuomo ( , ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ...
told the ''
New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...
'': "This is the ultimate shriek of alarm." This essay has also been published in Didion's non-fiction collection ''After Henry'' (1992). Normal police procedures stipulated that the names of criminal suspects under the age of 16 were to be withheld from the media and the public. But this policy was ignored when the names of the arrested juveniles were released to the press before any of them had been formally arraigned or
indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an indi ...
. For example, the name of Kharey Wise (he later adopted the use of Korey as his first name) was published in an April 25, 1989, article in the ''
Philadelphia Daily News ''Philadelphia Daily News'' is a tabloid newspaper that serves Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper is owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC, which also owns ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', a daily newspaper in Philadelphia. The ''Dail ...
'' about the attack on the female jogger. By that time, more information had been published about the primary suspects in the rape, who did not seem to satisfy typical profiles of perpetrators. Reporters had found that some came from stable, financially secure families; police had ruled out drugs or major robbery, and most had no criminal records. On April 26, 1989, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' published a cautionary editorial against the use of labels and questioning why such "well-adjusted youngsters" could have committed such a "savage" crime. After the major media's decisions to print the names, photos, and addresses of the juvenile suspects, they and their families received serious threats. Other residents living at the Schomburg Plaza, where four suspects lived, were also threatened. Because of this, editors of '' The City Sun'' and the '' Amsterdam News'' chose to use Meili's name in their continuing coverage of the events. Reverend Calvin O. Butts of the
Abyssinian Baptist Church The Abyssinian Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located at 132 West 138th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is affiliated with the National Bapt ...
in
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
, who came to support the five suspects, said to ''The New York Times'', "The first thing you do in the United States of America when a white woman is raped is round up a bunch of black youths, and I think that's what happened here." In most media accounts of the incident at that time, Meili was simply referred to as the "Central Park Jogger", but two local TV stations violated the media policy of not publicly identifying the victims of sex crimes and released her name in the days immediately following the attack. Two newspapers aimed at the African American community—'' The City Sun'' and the '' Amsterdam News''—and the black-owned
talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...
station
WLIB WLIB (1190 kHz, "La Exitosa 98.7 y 1190 AM") is a commercial AM radio station in New York City. Owned by Emmis Corporation, it is an AM simulcast of sister FM station 98.7 WEPN-FM. By day, WLIB is powered at 10,000 watts, using a direction ...
continued to cover the case as it progressed. Their editors said this was in response to the media having publicized the names and personal information about the five suspects, who were all minors before they were arraigned. The ''Open Line'' hosts on
WRKS WRKS (105.9 FM, "The Zone") is a radio station licensed to Pickens, Mississippi, although its studio is located in Ridgeland, Mississippi. Launched on July 2, 2009, the station's format is sports, with programming from ESPN Radio. WRKS is ow ...
were credited with helping continue to cover the case until the convicted youths were cleared in 2002 of the crime.


Donald Trump advertisement

About ten days after the boys started to confess, real estate magnate
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
called on May 1, 1989, for the return of the
death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...
for murder in full-page advertisements published in all four of the city's major newspapers. Trump said he wanted the "criminals of every age to be afraid". The advertisement, which cost an estimated , said, in part, The ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' has pointed out that, "The ad does not name any defendant, instead referring collectively to ‘roving bands of wild criminals. As to the particular defendants in this case, Trump said in 2002 that he greatly respected District Attorney Morgenthau, and was "sure the right answer will come out." However, in 2016, Trump said, "They admitted they were guilty….The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous."
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
assesses that, "Trump obviously still believes that the Central Park 5 are guilty, so it cannot be said he is lying or even misleading", though his opinion is contrary to the financial settlement in 2014. According to a contemporaneous article in the '' New York Amsterdam News'', the ad was "widely condemned", including by then-Mayor Koch. Colin Moore, one of the attorneys defending one of the Central Park defendants, said that the ad "proved that anything is possible in America", and that "even a fool can become a multi-millionaire." According to defendant Yusef Salaam, quoted in a February 2016 article in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', Trump "was the fire starter" in 1989, as "common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty." Salaam said his family received death threats after papers ran Trump's full-page ad urging the death penalty.


1989–1991 criminal actions

On May 10, 1989, Lopez, McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise were indicted with attempted murder and other charges in the attack on and rape of the female jogger and additional charges related to the attack of David Lewis, the attack and robbery of John Loughlin, and riot. The prosecution arranged to try the six defendants in the Meili case in two separate groups. This enabled them to control the order in which certain evidence would be introduced to the court. Each pleaded "not guilty". The families of Lopez, Richardson, and Salaam were able to make the $25,000 bail imposed by the court. The two other youths under 16 were returned to a juvenile facility to be held there until trial. Classified as an adult at 16, Korey Wise was separated from the others and held in an adult jail at
Rikers Island Rikers Island is a prison island in the East River in the Bronx, New York (state), New York, United States, that contains New York City's largest jail. Named after Abraham Rycken, who took possession of the island in 1664, the island was orig ...
until trial.


Pre-trial hearings

Numerous pretrial hearings were conducted by Judge Thomas B. Galligan of the State Supreme Court of Manhattan, who had been assigned the case. Since 1986, judges were generally assigned by lottery, but the court administrator assigned him to this case. The defense attorneys criticized Galligan as being biased in favor of the assistant district attorney and handing down tough sentences. The counsel of the defendants filed a motion for a different judge which was rejected. Defendants challenged the use of the videotaped confessions and statements, arguing that the confessions were coerced and that they had not been properly ''Mirandized''. Salaam argued that his statement should be suppressed because it was made outside of the presence of his parents, despite the fact that New York law entitled children fifteen and younger to have their parents with them during the interrogation process. Galligan ruled that the statements were admissible—finding that they were made voluntarily. In Salaam's case, Galligan found that Salaam had lied to the police about his age—telling them he was 16—and held that Salaam should not be able to derive a benefit from the falsehood.


Trials


First trial

In the first trial, which began June 25 and ended on August 18, 1990, defendants Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana were tried. Each of the teenagers had his own defense counsel. The jury consisted of four white Americans, four black Americans, three Hispanic Americans, and one Asian American. Meili testified at the trial, but her identity was not given to the court. None of the three defense attorneys cross-examined her. Meili was continually harassed by protesters during the case, both in the halls of the court and in the courtroom itself, who yelled obscenities at her such as "slut" and "whore". When the defense attorneys refused to cross-examine her, the protesters heckled them as well. The jury deliberated for 10 days before rendering its verdict on August 18. Each of the three youths was acquitted of attempted murder, but convicted of assault and rape of the female jogger, and convicted of assault and robbery of John Loughlin, a male jogger who was badly beaten that night in Central Park. At the sentencing hearing, Salaam read aloud a poem in which he said, "I look upon this legal lynching as a test by my God Allah." Salaam added, "I and many others know I told the truth. I would never disrespect my own religion by lying," and he told Judge Galligan to " ve me the max," as " oner or later the truth will come out." McCray told the judge: "I'm not going to let this stop me. I'm going to make it." Santana said, "Everyone knows I'm innocent of the crime. I never did it." Salaam and McCray were 15 years old, and Santana 14 years old, at the time of the crime. Judge Thomas B. Galligan sentenced each of the defendants to the maximum allowed for juveniles, 5–10 years each in a youth correctional facility.


Second trial

The second trial, of Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise, began October 22, 1990 and also lasted about two months, ending in December. Kevin Richardson, 14 years old at the time of the crime, had been free on $25,000 bail before the trial. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer had a lengthy opening statement, and Wise broke down at the defense table after it, weeping and shouting that she had lied. He was removed temporarily from the courtroom. Richardson's defense counsel made a motion for a mistrial, because of the potential effect on the jury, but the judge rejected it. The trial proceeded. The defense attorneys noted that each youth had limited intellectual ability and said that neither was capable of preparing the written statements or videotaped confessions submitted by the prosecution as evidence. They contended that the confessions had been coerced from youths vulnerable to pressure because of their age and their intellectual capacity. Meili testified again at this trial; again, her name was not given in court. This time one of the defense counsels, Wise's lawyer, cross-examined her. She later said in an interview on '' Oprah'': "I'll tell you what—I didn't feel wonderful about the boys' defense attorneys, especially the one who cross-examined me. He was right in front of my face and, in essence, calling me a slut by asking questions like 'When's the last time you had sex with your boyfriend? Wise's lawyer had also asked her whether she had ever been assaulted by men in her life, suggested that a man she knew may have attacked her, and implied that her injuries were not as severe as had been presented. Richardson was the only one of the five defendants to be convicted of attempted murder of Meili, in addition to sodomy and assault of her, and robbery and riot in the attack on John Loughlin, another jogger in the park. He was sentenced to 5–10 years in a juvenile facility. Korey Wise, 16 years old at the time of the crime, was acquitted of rape and attempted murder. At trial, Melody Jackson—the sister of one of Wise's friends—testified that, while incarcerated in the
Rikers Island Rikers Island is a prison island in the East River in the Bronx, New York (state), New York, United States, that contains New York City's largest jail. Named after Abraham Rycken, who took possession of the island in 1664, the island was orig ...
, he had told her that he had restrained and fondled the jogger. Wise was convicted of lesser charges of sexual abuse, assault, and riot in the attack on the female jogger and on Loughlin. Because of his age and the violent nature of the felony charge, he was tried and sentenced as an adult, receiving 5–15 years in adult prison. After the verdict, Wise shouted at the prosecutor: "You're going to pay for this. Jesus is going to get you. You made this up." Jurors who agreed to interviews after the trials said that they were not convinced by the youths' confessions, but were impressed by the
physical evidence In evidence law, physical evidence (also called real evidence or material evidence) is any material object that plays some role in the matter that gave rise to the litigation, introduced as evidence in a judicial proceeding (such as a trial) t ...
introduced by the prosecutors: semen, grass, dirt, and two hairs described as "consistent with" the victim's hair that were recovered from Richardson's underpants. According to an FBI expert who gave evidence at the trial, all five defendants could be excluded as being the man who had left the semen samples inside Meili and on a sock. In total, 14 men were tested, including the defendants and Meili's former boyfriend, and all were excluded. The semen belonged to another, unidentified male. Years later, more advanced DNA testing also revealed that the hairs in Richardson's clothes did not match the victim.


Criticism of the jury verdicts

In a lengthy 1991 essay for ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'',
Joan Didion Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. Didio ...
suggested that the verdicts were symptomatic of a cultural crisis, writing, "So fixed were the emotions provoked by this case that the idea that there could have been, for even one juror, even a moment's doubt in the state's case ... seemed, to many in the city, bewildering, almost unthinkable: the attack on the jogger had by then passed into narrative, and the narrative was ... about what was wrong with the city and about its solution". In a 2016 ''Guardian'' article, defense counsel William Warren was reported saying that he thought Trump's ads in 1989 had played a role in securing conviction by the juries, saying that "he poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York City and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim." He noted, "Notwithstanding the jurors' assertions that they could be fair and impartial, some of them or their families, who naturally have influence, had to be affected by the inflammatory rhetoric in the ads." In 2019, ''
Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine also assessed Trump's ads in 1989 as having adversely affected the case for the defendants.


Lopez's plea deal

Like the five others, Lopez was indicted for charges related to the attacks on both Meili and Loughlin. He denied any knowledge of the rape in his videotaped confession, but was implicated by other defendants' statements. Although Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer had said she would not accept a plea deal for any of the defendants indicted in the rape case, she did come to agreement with Steven Lopez and his attorney in the court on January 30, 1991, prior to a new jury being selected for his trial. He was considered the final of the six defendants in the jogger trial. Because Lopez had not acknowledged participating at all in the rape in his statement to police, and prosecution witnesses had withdrawn from testifying, based on what they said was fear of self-incrimination or "fear ortheir own safety", according to Lederer, the prosecution's case was extremely weak. He was sentenced in March 1991 to to years, after pleading guilty to the mugging of jogger John Loughlin. Because Lopez was younger than 16 at the time of the crime, he was sentenced to serve his time in a juvenile facility.


Appeals

Four of the six—all but Santana and Lopez—appealed their convictions, varyingly challenging Judge Galligan's decision to admit their confessions and whether their confessions were sufficiently corroborated by other evidence. Their convictions were upheld.


Incarceration

Through their time of incarceration, McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise maintained their innocence in the rape and attack of Meili, including at hearings before parole boards. While they acknowledged "witnessing or participating in other wrongdoing" in the park, they each maintained innocence in the attack of Meili. Richardson, Salaam, and Santana attended classes and earned a
GED Ged or GED may refer to: Places * Ged, Louisiana, an unincorporated community in the United States * Ged, a village in Bichiwara Tehsil, Dungarpur District, Rajasthan, India * Delaware Coastal Airport, in Delaware, US, callsign GED People * Ged B ...
and also completed an
associate degree An associate degree or associate's degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of academic qualification above a high school diploma and below a bachelor's degree ...
while there. Wise had to serve all of his time in adult prison, and encountered so much personal violence that he asked to stay in isolation for extended periods. He was held at four different prisons, having asked for transfers in the hope of improving his situation. He was released in August 2002, the last of the five men to leave prison. Santana was released in 1995; McCray in 1996; and Salaam and Richardson in 1997. Wise was released in August 2002.


Discovery of assailant

In 2001, Matias Reyes met Wise when they were held at the Auburn Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Reyes subsequently informed a corrections officer that he had
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...
d Meili. In 2002, Reyes told officials that on the night of April 19, 1989, he had assaulted and raped the female jogger. He was 17 years old at the time of the assault and said that he had committed it alone. He also said that he had intended to burglarize the victim's apartment. Reyes was then working at an East Harlem convenience store on
Third Avenue Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, as well as in the center portion of the Bronx. Its southern end is at Astor Place and St. Mark's Place. It transitions into Cooper Square ...
and 102nd Street, and living in a van on the street. Reyes was believed to have raped another woman in the same area of the park during the day on April 17, two days before the attack on Meili. Initially the Meili case was investigated as a homicide, and the April 17 rape was investigated as a rape assault, which resulted in a lack of comparison of the
DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
recovered in the two cases. The NYPD did not have a DNA database until 1994; after that, detectives and prosecutors had access to common information about DNA from evidence and taken from suspects in certain crimes. During the summer of 1989, Reyes raped four women, killing one, and was interrupted after robbing a fifth—he was sentenced to years to life after he pleaded guilty to the top counts in each case. District Attorney
Robert Morgenthau Robert Morris Morgenthau ( ; July 31, 1919July 21, 2019) was an American lawyer. From 1975 until his retirement in 2009, he was the District Attorney for New York County (the borough of Manhattan), having previously served as United States Attorn ...
's office was notified of the confession in 2002. Morgenthau appointed a team led by Assistant District Attorneys Nancy Ryan and Peter Casolaro to investigate the case, based on Reyes's confession and a review of evidence. Reyes provided officials with a detailed account of the attack, details of which were corroborated by other evidence which the police held. In addition, his DNA matched the DNA evidence at the scene, confirming that he was the sole source of the
semen Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is a bodily fluid that contains spermatozoon, spermatozoa which is secreted by the male gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphrodite, hermaphroditic animals. In humans and placen ...
found in and on the victim "to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people". Reyes' DNA matched the semen found on Meili, and he provided other confirmatory
evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the proposition is truth, true. The exact definition and role of evidence vary across different fields. In epistemology, evidence is what J ...
. In announcing these facts, Morgenthau also said that the perpetrator had tied up Meili with her T-shirt in a distinctive fashion that Reyes used again on later victims in crimes for which he was convicted. Based on interviews and other evidence, the team believed that Reyes had acted alone: The rape appeared to have taken place in the North Woods area after the main body of the thirty teenagers had moved well to the south, and the timeline reconstruction of events made it unlikely that he was joined by any of the defendants. In addition, Reyes was not known to have been associated with any of the six indicted defendants. He lived at 102nd Street, in what locals considered another neighborhood. None of the six defendants in the rape mentioned him by name in association with the rape. Because Reyes's confession occurred after New York's then-five-year
statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...
had passed, he was not charged with the offense. Reyes claimed he came forward because "it was the right thing to do".


Convictions of the Five and Lopez vacated

Based on newly discovered evidence—specifically, an affidavit by Reyes confessing to the crime and declaring that he acted alone—Wise, McCray, Santana, Richardson, and Salaam filed motions to have their convictions set aside and for the court "to grant whatever further relief may be just and proper." In late 2002,
Robert Morgenthau Robert Morris Morgenthau ( ; July 31, 1919July 21, 2019) was an American lawyer. From 1975 until his retirement in 2009, he was the District Attorney for New York County (the borough of Manhattan), having previously served as United States Attorn ...
, District Attorney for New York County, conducted an investigation into the potential innocence of Wise, McCray, Santana, Richardson, and Salaam. Nancy Ryan, an ADA in Morgenthau's office, filed an affirmation supporting motions by the defendants to vacate their convictions in December 2002. Ryan's affirmation recommended vacating the convictions of Wise, McCray, Santana, Richardson, and Salaam. Though the "newly discovered evidence" only related to Meili's assault, Ryan found that the defendants' contemporaneous confessions as to the other crimes could not reliably be disentangled from their false rape confessions, and, as such, she recommended granting the defendants' motions as to each of the convictions. As to Meili's assault, the DA's office questioned the veracity of the confessions, pointing to the many inconsistencies between them and their lack of correspondence to established facts. In addition, the filing noted that, based on a reconstruction of events, the teenagers were either spectating or participating in other crimes in the park at the time that the rape occurred. Ryan continued: "Ultimately, there proved to be no physical or forensic evidence recovered at the scene or from the person or effects of the victim which connected the defendants to the attack on the jogger, or could establish how many perpetrators participated." The five defendants' convictions were vacated by
New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the superior court in the Judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil ju ...
Justice Charles J. Tejada on December 19, 2002. As Morgenthau recommended, Tejada's order vacated the convictions for all the crimes of which the defendants had been convicted. All five of the defendants had completed their prison sentences at the time of Tejada's order; their names were cleared in relation to this case. This also enabled them being removed from New York State's
sex offender registry A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. Sex offender registration is usual ...
. In addition to having had difficulty getting employment or renting housing, as registered offenders, they had been required to report to authorities in person every three months. The city government also withdrew all charges against the men. On July 25, 2022, Steven Lopez's robbery conviction was overturned, and the indictment against him dismissed after District Attorney
Alvin Bragg Alvin Leonard Bragg Jr. (born October 21, 1973) is an American politician and lawyer who serves as the New York County District Attorney, covering Manhattan. In 2021, he became the first African American elected to that office. Bragg had previo ...
filed a motion to vacate. According to Bragg, "Mr. Lopez was charged and pleaded guilty in the face of false statements, unreliable forensic analysis and immense external pressure."


Aftermath

The DA's recommendation to vacate the convictions was strongly opposed by lead detectives on the case and other members of the police department. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly complained at the time that Morgenthau's staff had denied his detectives access to "important evidence" needed to conduct a thorough investigation. Linda Fairstein, who directed the original prosecution, agreed with the decision to vacate the rape charges but said the separate assault charges should have remained. Morgenthau would later express regret assigning the case to Fairstein, saying "I had complete confidence in Linda Fairstein. Turned out to be misplaced. But we rectified it."


Armstrong Report

Following these events, in 2002,
New York City Police Commissioner The New York City police commissioner is the head of the New York City Police Department and presiding member of the Board of Commissioners. The commissioner is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the mayor. The commissioner is responsibl ...
Raymond Kelly commissioned a panel to review the case, "To determine whether the new evidence rom the Reyes affidavit and related evidence, and Morgenthau's investigationindicated that police supervisors or officers acted improperly or incorrectly, and to determine whether police policy or procedures needed to be changed as a result of the Central Park jogger case." The panel was chaired by attorney Michael F. Armstrong, the former chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, which in 1972 had documented widespread corruption in the NYPD. Two other attorneys were included: Jules Martin, a former police officer and now
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
Vice President; and Stephen Hammerman, deputy police commissioner for legal affairs. The panel issued a 43-page report in January 2003. In its January 2003 Armstrong Report, the panel "did not dispute the legal necessity of setting aside the convictions of the five defendants based on the new DNA evidence that Mr. Reyes had raped the jogger." But it disputed acceptance of Reyes's claim that he alone had raped the jogger. It said there was "nothing but his uncorroborated word" that he acted alone. Armstrong said the panel believed "the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon." The report concluded that the five men whose convictions had been vacated had "most likely" participated in the beating and rape of the jogger and that the "most likely scenario" was that "both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively." The report said Reyes had most likely "either joined in the attack as it was ending or waited until the defendants had moved on to their next victims before descending upon her himself, raping her and inflicting upon her the brutal injuries that almost caused her death." New York City detectives supported the 2003 Armstrong Report by the police department. The panel said there had been "no misconduct in the 1989 investigation of the Central Park jogger case". As to the five defendants, the report said: Edward Conlon, a writer and former New York police officer, said that Armstrong, " support of his assessment, ... offers a number of tantalizing theories, only partially undergirded by fully explored evidence". He characterized the report as "resembl nga defense document more than a prosecution brief in its approach, throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks".


Lawsuits against New York City

In 2003, McCray, Richardson, Santana, Salaam, and Wise sued the City of New York in federal court, accusing the city's police and prosecutors of false arrest, malicious prosecution and a racially motivated conspiracy to deprive the men of their civil rights. The defendants sought $52 million. Under
Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023. He served as the 108th mayo ...
's mayoral administration, the city refused to pursue a settlement for the lawsuits based on a conclusion that the defendants had had a fair trial. Speaking at a news conference in 2002,
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...
spoke of his confidence regarding the actions of the
police department The police are a constituted body of people empowered by a state with the aim of enforcing the law and protecting the public order as well as the public itself. This commonly includes ensuring the safety, health, and possessions of citize ...
. "As far as I can tell, the N.Y.P.D. did exactly what they should have done a number of years ago when the terrible incident took place ... If we see any reason to think that we acted inappropriately, olice Commissioner Kelly will certainly take appropriate measures. But so far we believe that the N.Y.P.D. did act appropriately." In 2011, Celeste Koeleveld, then New York City's Executive Assistant Corporation Counsel for Public Safety, gave a public statement on behalf of the city after receiving public criticism from Councilman Charles Barron for failing to resolve the lawsuits: After the
election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...
of Mayor
Bill de Blasio Bill de Blasio (; born Warren Wilhelm Jr., May 8, 1961; later Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm) is an American politician who was the List of mayors of New York City, 109th mayor of New York City, mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of t ...
, who had run on a campaign promise to resolve the matter, the city endeavored to settle the suit; in a June 2014 press conference, de Blasio announced a proposed settlement payment of about $40 million—nearly $1 million per year of incarceration for each defendant. The settlement was officially approved in September 2014. Santana, Salaam, McCray, and Richardson each received around $7.1 million from the city for their years in prison, while Wise received $12.2 million because he had served six additional years. The city did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement. The five defendants subsequently sued the state in the
New York Court of Claims The New York State Court of Claims is the court of the New York State Unified Court System which handles all claims against the State of New York and certain state agencies. Judges Judges of the Court of Claims are appointed by the Governor of ...
, before Judge Alan Marin. The New York courts allowed the second suit because, unlike the first suit, which was predicated on civil-rights violations, the second suit was based on claims for economic and emotional devastation caused by incarceration. Speaking of the second suit, against the state, Santana said: "When you have a person who has been exonerated of a crime, the city provides no services to transition him back to society. The only thing left is something like this—so you can receive some type of money so you can survive." In 2016, the state-court suit settled for $3.9 million, with varying amounts related to the period of time that each man had served in prison.


Reaction to settlements

After New York City had settled the federal suit, some figures returned to the media to dispute the court's 2002 decision to vacate the convictions. Retired New York City detective Edward Conlon, who had been involved with the case, in an article published in October 2014 in ''
The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. Founded in 2008, the website is owned by IAC Inc. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief ...
'', quoted incriminatory statements allegedly made by some of the youths after they had been taken into custody by police in April 1989. Similarly, two doctors who had treated Meili after the attack said in 2014, after the settlement, that some of her injuries appeared to be inconsistent with Reyes's claim that he had acted alone. But a forensic pathologist who testified at the 1990 trial said that it was impossible to tell from the victim's injuries how many people had participated in the assault, as did New York City's chief medical examiner in 2002. Meili, who had no memory of what happened, said at the time of the settlement that she believed there had been more than one attacker and expressed her regret that the case had been settled. Donald Trump also commented on the settlement in a 2014 opinion article for the New York '' ''Daily News''''. He said the settlement was "a disgrace", and that the men were likely guilty: "Settling doesn't mean innocence. ... Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels." During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump again said that the Exonerated Five were guilty and that their convictions should not have been vacated. The Exonerated Five criticized Trump at the time for his statement, stating they had falsely confessed under police coercion. Other critics included U.S. Senator
John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American statesman and United States Navy, naval officer who represented the Arizona, state of Arizona in United States Congress, Congress for over 35 years, first as ...
, who said that Trump's responses were "outrageous statements about the innocent men in the case". He cited this as among his reasons to retract his endorsement of the candidate. In June 2019 Trump stated he would not apologize, saying the Exonerated Five "admitted their guilt". Meili later commented that she wished the matter would have been retried, rather than settled out of court, and that she believed her attack was not the result of a single person.


Trisha Meili

The initial medical prognosis was that Meili would die of her injuries or remain in a permanent coma. She was given
last rites The last rites, also known as the Commendation of the Dying, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of Christian faith, when possible, shortly before death. The Commendation of the Dying is practiced in liturgical Chri ...
. Meili came out of her coma after 12 days on May 1st, unable to talk, read, or walk. She was then treated for seven weeks in Metropolitan Hospital in
East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem, or , is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City, north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fifth Avenue to the west, and the East and Harlem Rivers to the eas ...
before being transferred to Gaylord Hospital, a long-term
acute care Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery.Alberta Health ServicesAcute care.Acce ...
center in
Wallingford, Connecticut Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, centrally located between New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford, and Boston and New York City. The town is part ...
, where she spent six months in rehabilitation. She did not walk until mid-July 1989. She returned to work eight months after the attack. She largely recovered, with some lingering disabilities related to balance and loss of vision. As a result of the severe trauma, she had no memory of the attack or any events up to an hour before the assault, nor of the six weeks following the attack. Meili returned to work at the investment bank. In April 2003, Meili confirmed her identity to the media when she published a memoir entitled ''I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility''. She began a career as an inspirational speaker. She also works with victims of sexual assault and brain injury in the Mount Sinai Hospital sexual assault and violence intervention program. She had resumed jogging in 1989, three or four months after the attack, and over the years added a variety of other exercise and yoga practice. She continues to manifest some after-effects of the assault, including
memory loss Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or brain diseases,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be temporarily caused by t ...
.


Lives of the Exonerated Five

After being released from prison in September 1996, McCray moved to Maryland and became a forklift operator. He is married, has six children, and lives and works in Georgia. Richardson acted as an advocate with Santana and Salaam to reform New York State's criminal justice practices, advocating methods to prevent false confessions and eyewitness misidentifications. He also participated in a series of talks on criminal-justice reform and wrongful convictions. Salaam became a board member of the
Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and other forms of post-conviction relief, as well as advocates for criminal justice reform to prevent futur ...
and has advocated for criminal-justice reform, particularly for juveniles. In 2016, he received a
Lifetime Achievement Award Lifetime achievement awards are awarded by various organizations, to recognize contributions over the whole of a career, rather than or in addition to single contributions. Such awards, and organizations presenting them, include: A * A.C. ...
from President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
. In 2017, he and Fernando Bermudez penned an
op ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted aud ...
for the ''
New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
'' in support of two criminal-justice-reform measures offered by then-Governor
Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( , ; born December 6, 1957) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 until his resignation in 2021. A member of the Democratic Party and son of former governor Mario Cuomo, ...
: one proposal would require police interrogations to be recorded from start to finish; the second would provide training to police officers to protect against misidentification. The budget proposal passed, and the video-recording requirement took effect April 1, 2018. Salaam started Yusef Speaks LLC and works as a motivational speaker. Salaam declared his candidacy for the open
New York City Council The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City in the United States. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The council serves as a check against the mayor in a mayor-council government mod ...
's 9th District in 2023, after incumbent Kristin Richardson Jordan declined to run for reelection. Salaam won the Democratic nomination for the seat on June 27, 2023, and officially won the seat on November 7, 2023. Santana was released from prison in December 1995, and was out of prison for six months before he was found guilty of possession of crack cocaine in 1998 and reincarcerated for a term of 3.5 to 7 years. He was released in 2002 when the prosecutor, agreeing that his sentence had been higher due to his (then-vacated) conviction for raping Meili, reduced it to the 18–48 months that would typically have been given to a first-time offender. Santana started a clothing company, Park Madison NYC, and donates a portion of Park Madison NYC's proceeds to the
Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and other forms of post-conviction relief, as well as advocates for criminal justice reform to prevent futur ...
. Santana has also appeared with other involved men in presentations at local schools and colleges. After his release, Wise changed his first name to Korey; he found work as a construction worker and, for a time, as an office cleaner for Reverend
Al Sharpton Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights and social justice activist, Baptists, Baptist minister, radio talk show host, and TV personality, who is also the founder of the National Action Network civil rig ...
. Wise remained in New York City, where he works as a speaker and justice reform activist. He donated $190,000 of his 2014 settlement to the chapter of the
Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and other forms of post-conviction relief, as well as advocates for criminal justice reform to prevent futur ...
at the
University of Colorado Law School The University of Colorado Law School is one of the professional graduate schools within the University of Colorado System. It is a public law school, with more than 500 students attending and working toward a Juris Doctor or Master of Studies i ...
, to aid other wrongfully convicted people to gain exoneration; they renamed the project in his honor as the Korey Wise Innocence Project. The Five made the news in late March and early April 2023, after Trump was indicted on felony charges of falsifying business records in an alleged hush money payment scheme and cover-up before the 2016 presidential election. Salaam issued a one-word statement: "Karma". He reminded the world that Trump never apologized for the misdirected vengeance and ran a full-page ad in the ''New York Times'' with the headline text, "Bring back justice & fairness. Build a brighter future for Harlem!" Raymond Santana, on social media, urged for people to "never forget" Trump's actions. Rev. Al Sharpton noted the irony of both trials taking place in the same downtown Manhattan courthouse building: "what goes around comes around." During a presidential debate on September 10, 2024, Trump falsely said the Five had initially pleaded guilty to the assault before changing their pleas (actually some of them had confessed but recanted before entering any official plea); Trump also described during the debate his viewpoint at the time of those events: "I said, 'well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately…. Doctors predicted the victim might ultimately die of her injuries, but she survived. On October 21, the Five sued Trump for
defamation Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...
in federal court in Philadelphia, where he had made the allegedly defamatory statements.


Legislative and other justice reforms

Because of the great publicity surrounding the case, the vacated conviction of Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise highlighted the issue of
false confession A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogatio ...
s. The issue of false confessions has become a major topic of study and efforts at criminal justice reform, particularly for juveniles. Juveniles have been found to make false confessions and guilty pleas at a much higher rate than adults. Advances in DNA analysis and the work of non-profit groups such as the Innocence Project have resulted in 343 people being exonerated of their crimes due to DNA testing. This process has revealed the strong role of false confessions in wrongful convictions. According to a 2016 study by Craig J. Trocino, director of the Miami Law Innocence Clinic, 27 percent of those persons had "originally confessed to their crimes". Members of the Five have been among activists who have advocated for videotaped interrogations and related reforms to try to prevent false confessions. Since 1989, New York and some 24 other states have passed laws requiring "electronic records of full interrogations". In some cases, this requirement is limited to certain types of crimes.


Contemporaneous cases compared by the media

The Central Park events, which were attributed at the time to members of the large group of youths who attacked numerous persons in the park, including whites, blacks and Hispanics, were covered as an extreme example of the violence that was occurring in the city, including assaults and robberies, rapes and homicides. Focusing on rapes in the same week as the one in Central Park, ''The New York Times'' reported on April 29, 1990, on the "28 other first-degree rapes or attempted rapes reported across New York City". The fourth one, on April 17, took place during the day in the park and is now tied to Reyes. Later after the Central Park rape, when public attention was on the theory of a gang of young suspects, a brutal attack took place in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
on May 3, 1989. A 39-year-old black woman was robbed, raped and thrown from the roof of a four-story building by three young men. She fell 50 feet, suffering severe injuries. The incident received little media coverage in May 1989, when the focus was on the Central Park case. The woman's injuries required extensive hospitalization and rehabilitation. ''The New York Times'' continued to report on the case, and followed up on prosecution of suspects. Tyrone Prescott, 17, Kelvin Furman, 22, and another young man, Darren Decotea (name corrected a few days later as Darron Decoteau), 17, were apprehended within two weeks and prosecuted for the crimes. They arranged plea deals with the prosecution in October 1990 before trial; the first two were sentenced to six to 18 years in prison. Decoteau had made a plea deal in February in which he agreed to testify against the other two. He was sentenced on October 10, 1990, to four to twelve years in prison. Social justice activists and critics have pointed to the lack of extensive coverage of the attack of the woman in Brooklyn as showing the media's racial bias; they have accused it of overlooking violence against minority women.


Representation in other media

*
Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV or the Nati ...
, Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon premiered their '' The Central Park Five'', a documentary film about the case, at the
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...
in May 2012. Documentarian Ken Burns said he hoped the material of the film would push the city to settle the men's case against it. On September 12, 2012, attorneys for New York City
subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...
ed the production company for access to the original footage in connection with its defense of the 2003 federal civil lawsuit brought against the city by three of the convicted youths. Celeste Koeleveld, the city's executive assistant corporation counsel for public safety, justified the subpoena on the grounds that the film had "crossed the line from journalism to advocacy" for the wrongfully convicted men. In February 2013, U.S. Judge Ronald L. Ellis quashed the city's subpoena. * On May 31, 2019, ''
When They See Us ''When They See Us'' is a 2019 American crime drama television miniseries created, co-written, and directed by Ava DuVernay for Netflix, that premiered in four parts on May 31, 2019. It is based on events of the 1989 Central Park jogger cas ...
'', a four-episode miniseries, was released on
Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
.
Ava DuVernay Ava Marie DuVernay (; born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is a recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, NAACP Image Awards, a British Academy Film Awards, ...
co-wrote and directed the drama. Its release and wide viewing on Netflix prompted renewed discussion of the case, the criminal justice system, and of the lives of the five men. It has resulted in a civil
libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...
lawsuit by Fairstein. * An opera, also called '' The Central Park Five'', premiered in
Long Beach, California Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...
, performed by the Long Beach Opera Company, on June 15, 2019.Anne Midgette, "'The Central Park Five,' in song: Composer Anthony Davis on his new opera"
''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', June 23, 2019
The music is by composer
Anthony Davis Anthony Marshon Davis Jr. (born March 11, 1993), nicknamed "AD" and "the Brow", is an American professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Davis, a Power forward (basketball), power f ...
and the libretto by
Richard Wesley Richard Wesley (born July 11, 1945) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is an associate professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing. Early life Wesley w ...
. Davis won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Music for this work. An earlier version, ''Five'', had premiered in
Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...
, by the Trilogy Company.


See also

* Groveland Four *
List of wrongful convictions in the United States This list of wrongful convictions in the United States includes people who have been legally exonerated, including people whose convictions have been overturned or vacated, and who have not been retried because the charges were dismissed by the s ...
*
Martinsville Seven The Martinsville Seven were a group of seven African Americans, African-American men from Martinsville, Virginia, who were all executed in 1951 by the state of Virginia after being convicted of raping a white woman. At the time of their arrest, all ...
* Scottsboro Boys * Willie McGee (convict)


Notes


References


Further reading

* * Michael F. Armstrong, et al. (January 27, 2003
"NYPD Review of the Central Park Jogger Case"
* * * , opinion article by NYPD retired detective who disagreed with the exoneration and settlement * * The essay was also included in Didion's 1992 book '' After Henry''. * * * * Ryan, Nancy E. (December 5, 2002
"Affirmation in Response to Motion to Vacate Judgement of Conviction"
Prosecution's detailed summary of the case after investigation following confession by Matias Reyes. * *


External links

* * court records including videos of confessions
Case docket: In re McRay, Richardson, Santana, Wise and Salaam Litigation
December 2003 filing of lawsuit against NYC * 1 hr, 28 minutes {{New York City Police Department, state=autocollapse 1980s crimes in New York City 1980s in Manhattan 1989 crimes 1989 in New York City 1990 controversies in the United States 1990s trials 20th-century American trials African-American history in New York City African-American-related controversies Anti-black racism in New York (state) April 1989 crimes in the United States Jogger case Crimes in Manhattan Donald Trump controversies False confessions History of women in New York City Violence against women in New York (state) Incidents of violence against women Mass media-related controversies in the United States Media bias controversies Overturned convictions in the United States Race and crime in the United States Race-related controversies in the United States Rape in the 1980s Rape trials in the United States Rapes in the United States Robberies in the United States Trials in New York (state)