fbpx
Wikipedia

Central Park jogger case

April 12, 2024

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 in Central Park in Manhattan, New York, on April 19, 1989.[1][2] On the night of the attack, dozens of teenagers had entered the park, and there were reports of muggings and physical assaults.[2]

Central Park jogger case
Central Park sign honoring the exonerated
LocationCentral Park, New York City
DateApril 19, 1989 (1989-04-19)
9:00–10:00 p.m. (EDT)
Attack type
Rape
InjuredTrisha Meili
PerpetratorMatias Reyes
Verdict
  • Richardson guilty on all counts
  • McCray, Salaam, and Santana not guilty of attempted murder, guilty on remaining counts
  • Wise not guilty of attempted murder and rape, guilty on remaining counts
  • All convictions vacated in 2002
Charges
SentenceRichardson, McCray, Salaam, Santana:
5–10 years in juvenile detention (paroled after 6–7 years)
Wise:
15 years in prison (released after 13 years)
Litigation

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.[3] More than a decade after the attack, while incarcerated for attacking five other women in 1989, serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the Meili assault and claimed he was the only actor; DNA evidence confirmed his involvement.[4] 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, discrimination, and inequality in the legal system and the media.[5][6][7][8] All five defendants sued the City of New York for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress; the city settled the suit in 2014 for $41 million.

Attacks edit

 
North Woods, one of several places where crimes were reported

At 9:00 p.m. on April 19, 1989, a group of an estimated 20[9] to 32 teenagers who lived in East Harlem entered Manhattan's Central Park at an entrance in Harlem, near Central Park North.[10] 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.[11]

Within the North Woods, between 102nd and 105th Street, assailants were reported attacking several bicyclists, hurling rocks at a cab, and attacking a pedestrian, whom they robbed of his food and beer and left unconscious.[10][11] The teenagers roamed south along the park's East Drive and the 97th Street transverse, between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.[10] Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9:00 and 10:00 p.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.[10] 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.[10] And Gerald Malone and Patricia Dean, riding on a tandem bike, 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.[10]

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 9:50 p.m.[11]: ¶ 7  David Lewis testified that he was attacked and robbed about 9:25–9:40 p.m.[10] Robert Garner said he was assaulted at about 9:30 p.m.[10] David Good testified he was attacked at about 9:47 p.m.[10] 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".[11]: ¶ 7  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".[12]

Rape of Trisha Meili edit

 
Map of north half of Central Park within Manhattan, showing the approximate location where Trisha Meili was found after being assaulted

Patricia "Trisha" Ellen Meili,[13] a 28-year-old,[14][15] was going for a regular run in Central Park shortly before 9:00 p.m.[11][16] While jogging, she was knocked down, dragged nearly 300 feet (91 m) off the roadway,[11]: ¶ 26  and violently physically and sexually assaulted.[10][17] 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.[10][18][17] 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."[14] Meili was so badly injured that she was in a coma for 12 days. She had severe hypothermia, severe brain damage, severe hemorrhagic shock, loss of 75–80 percent of her blood, and internal bleeding.[15][19][20][21] Her skull had been fractured so badly that her left eye was dislodged from its socket, which in turn was fractured in 21 places.[15][19]

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 characterized the attack on the jogger as "one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980's".[22]

Arrests and investigation edit

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

Police took custody of Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both 14 years of age, at approximately 10:15 p.m. on Central Park West and 102nd Street.[10][11][18] Steven Lopez, 15,[11]: ¶ 12  was also arrested within an hour of several other attacks being reported to police.[23] He was also interrogated.[24]

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.[11] Korey Wise (then known as Kharey Wise), 16, accompanied Salaam for questioning, because they were friends, but was questioned himself.[18][25]

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.[26][27]

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.[28][29]

Confessions edit

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.[10] Santana, McCray, and Richardson made video statements in the presence of parents.[10] Wise made several statements unaccompanied by any parent, guardian or counsel.[10] Lopez was interviewed on videotape in the presence of his parents on April 21, 1989, beginning at 3:30 a.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.[30] 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.[31] According to a later statement by District Attorney Nancy Ryan, "[a]ll five implicated themselves in a number of the crimes which had occurred in the park."[11]: ¶ 10 

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."[31][11]: ¶ 91  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.[11]: ¶ 92  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.[11]: ¶ 84  Their confessions varied as to who they identified as having participated in the rape, including naming several youths who were never questioned.[11]: ¶ 86  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.[11]: ¶ 84 

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 confessions. While the confessions were videotaped, the hours of interrogation that preceded the confessions were not.[29]

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.[32] 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.[11] 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.[18] 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."[33]

Within two weeks of their confessions, each of the suspects recanted.[34]: 210  They argued that their statements were coerced by police and that their rights to counsel and Miranda warnings had been violated.[34]: 210 

April 21 press conference edit

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.[7]

New York City senior detectives said the term "wilding" was used by the suspects when describing their actions to police.[7] 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".[35][36]

Media coverage edit

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".[18] New York Governor Mario Cuomo told the New York Post: "This is the ultimate shriek of alarm."[37]

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.[37] 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 about the attack on the female jogger.[21]

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 published a cautionary editorial against the use of labels and questioning why such "well-adjusted youngsters" could have committed such a "savage" crime.[1]

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.[38] Reverend Calvin O. Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, 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."[37]

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 station WLIB continued to cover the case as it progressed.[37] 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.[8] The Open Line hosts on WRKS were credited with helping continue to cover the case until the convicted youths were cleared in 2002 of the crime.[39]

 
The full-page advertisement was taken out by Trump in the May 1, 1989, issue of the Daily News.

On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump—at the time a real estate magnate—called for the return of the death penalty 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".[5][40] The advertisement, which cost an estimated US$85,000 (equivalent to $209,000 in 2023),[5][40] said, in part,

Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer ... Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. ... How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits? Criminals must be told that their Civil Liberties End When an Attack On Our Safety Begins![41]

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."[42][43] According to defendant Yusef Salaam, quoted in a February 2016 article in The Guardian, Trump "was the fire starter" in 1989, as "common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty."[33] Salaam said his family received death threats after papers ran Trump's full-page ad urging the death penalty.[33]

1989–1991 criminal actions edit

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.[11][24][a] 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.[29]

Each pleaded "not guilty". The families of Lopez,[23] Richardson,[24] and Salaam[44] 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.[24] Classified as an adult at 16, Korey Wise was separated from the others and held in an adult jail at Rikers Island until trial.[45]

Pre-trial hearings edit

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,[46] judges were generally assigned by lottery, but the court administrator assigned him to this case.[47][48] 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.[47][48]

Defendants challenged the use of the videotaped confessions and statements, arguing that the confessions were coerced and that they had not been properly Mirandized.[49][50]: 500  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.[50]: 500  Galligan ruled that the statements were admissible—finding that they were made voluntarily.[50]: 481, 500  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.[50]: 500 

Trials edit

First trial edit

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.[51] The jury consisted of four white Americans, four black Americans, three Hispanic Americans, and one Asian American.[52] Meili testified at the trial, but her identity was not given to the court. None of the three defense attorneys cross-examined her.[11] 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.[53]

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.[54]

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 ″[g]ive me the max," as "[s]ooner 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."[54]

Salaam and McCray were 15 years old, and Santana 14 years old, at the time of the crime.[11]: ¶ 10  Judge Thomas B. Galligan sentenced each of the defendants to the maximum allowed for juveniles, 5–10 years each in a youth correctional facility.[11][55]

Second trial edit

The second trial, of Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise, began October 22, 1990[56] and also lasted about two months, ending in December.[11] Kevin Richardson, 14 years old at the time of the crime, had been free on $25,000 bail before the trial.[57]

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.[57]

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.[57] They contended that the confessions had been coerced from youths vulnerable to pressure because of their age and their intellectual capacity.[56]

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?'"[58] 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.[59]

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.[60] He was sentenced to 5–10 years in a juvenile facility.[11]

Korey Wise, 16 years old at the time of the crime, was acquitted of rape and attempted murder.[60] At trial, Melody Jackson—the sister of one of Wise's friends—testified that, while incarcerated in the Rikers Island, he had told her that he had restrained and fondled the jogger.[61] Wise was convicted of lesser charges of sexual abuse, assault, and riot in the attack on the female jogger and on Loughlin.[60] 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.[11] 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."[60]

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 introduced by the prosecutors: semen, grass, dirt, and two hairs described as "consistent with" the victim's hair[11]: 6  that were recovered from Richardson's underpants.[62]

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.[29] In total, 14 men were tested, including the defendants and Meili's former boyfriend, and all were excluded.[29] The semen belonged to another, unidentified male.[29] Years later, more advanced DNA testing also revealed that the hairs in Richardson's clothes did not match the victim.[63]

Criticism of the jury verdicts edit

In a 1991 article, Joan Didion suggested the verdicts stemmed from 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".[64]

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."[33] 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."[33] In 2019 Time magazine also assessed Trump's ads in 1989 as having adversely affected the case for the defendants.[65]

Lopez's plea deal edit

Like the five others, Lopez was indicted for charges related to the attacks on both Meili and Loughlin.[66] He denied any knowledge of the rape in his videotaped confession, but was implicated by other defendants' statements.[66][67]

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 [for] their own safety", according to Lederer, the prosecution's case was extremely weak.[23] He was sentenced in March 1991 to 1+1⁄2 to 4+1⁄2 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.[68]

Appeals edit

Four of the six—all but Santana and Lopez—appealed their convictions,[11] varyingly challenging Judge Galligan's decision to admit their confessions[50]: 482  and whether their confessions were sufficiently corroborated by other evidence.[69]: 1091  Their convictions were upheld.[50]: 482 

Incarceration edit

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.[31]

Richardson, Salaam, and Santana attended classes and earned a GED and also completed an associate degree while there.[70]

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.[71] He was released in August 2002, the last of the five men to leave prison.[29][72]

Santana was released in 1995; McCray in 1996; and Salaam and Richardson in 1997. Wise was released in August 2002.[73]

Discovery of assailant edit

In 2001, Matias Reyes met Wise when they were held at the Auburn Correctional Facility in upstate New York.[74][75][76][77] Reyes subsequently informed a corrections officer that he had raped Meili.[78][79][80] 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.[4][80] He also said that he had intended to burglarize the victim's apartment.[81][82] Reyes was then working at an East Harlem convenience store on Third Avenue and 102nd Street, and living in a van on the street.[80][13]: 115 

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 recovered in the two cases.[83] 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.[83] During the summer of 1989, Reyes raped four women, killing one, and was interrupted after robbing a fifth—he was sentenced to 33+1⁄2 years to life after he pleaded guilty to the top counts in each case.[11]: ¶ 38 

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office was notified of the confession in 2002.[11] 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.[29] 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 found in and on the victim "to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people".[11] Reyes' DNA matched the semen found on Meili, and he provided other confirmatory evidence.[63][84] 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.[11]

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.[11]

Because Reyes's confession occurred after New York's then-five-year statute of limitations had passed, he was not charged with the offense.[85][86][87][88] Reyes claimed he came forward because "it was the right thing to do".[89]

Convictions of the Five and Lopez vacated edit

 
Yusef Salaam in 2009, seven years after his conviction was 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."[11]: ¶¶ 3–4  In late 2002, Robert Morgenthau, 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.[11]: ¶¶ 105, 108, 118  Though the "newly discovered evidence" only related to Meili's assault, Ryan found that the defendants' contemporaneous[b] 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.[11]: ¶¶ 108, 115, 118 

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.

[A] comparison of the statements reveals troubling discrepancies. ... The accounts given by the five defendants differed from one another on the specific details of virtually every major aspect of the crime—who initiated the attack, who knocked the victim down, who undressed her, who struck her, who held her, who raped her, what weapons were used in the course of the assault, and when in the sequence of events the attack took place. ... In many other respects the defendants' statements were not corroborated by, consistent with, or explanatory of objective, independent evidence. And some of what they said was simply contrary to established fact.[11]: ¶ 86 

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.[10] 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."[11]: ¶ 34 

The five defendants' convictions were vacated by New York Supreme Court 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.[3] 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. 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.[3][90] The city government also withdrew all charges against the men.[91][63]

On July 25, 2022, Steven Lopez's robbery conviction was overturned, and the indictment against him dismissed after District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a motion to vacate.[92][93] According to Bragg, "Mr. Lopez was charged and pleaded guilty in the face of false statements, unreliable forensic analysis and immense external pressure."[92]

Aftermath edit

The DA's recommendation to vacate the convictions was strongly opposed by lead detectives on the case and other members of the police department.[29] 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.[3]

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.[94][95] 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."[96]

Lawyers for the five defendants repeated their assessment that Trump's advertisements in 1989 had inflamed public opinion about the case. After Reyes confessed to the crime and said he acted alone, defense counselor Michael W. Warren said, "I think Donald Trump at the very least owes a real apology to this community and to the young men and their families."[40] Protests were held outside Trump Tower in October 2002 with protestors chanting, "Trump is a chump!"[40] Trump did not apologize.[40]

Armstrong Report edit

Following these events, in 2002, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commissioned a panel to review the case, "To determine whether the new evidence [from the Reyes affidavit and related evidence, and Morgenthau's investigation] indicated 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."[83][97] 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 Vice President; and Stephen Hammerman, deputy police commissioner for legal affairs.[97][98][99][100] The panel issued a 43-page report in January 2003.[97][83]

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."[97] But it disputed acceptance of Reyes's claim that he alone had raped the jogger.[97][98] It said there was "nothing but his uncorroborated word" that he acted alone.[97] Armstrong said the panel believed "the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon."[97]

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."[97] 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."[97]

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".[97]

As to the five defendants, the report said:

We believe the inconsistencies contained in the various statements were not such as to destroy their reliability. On the other hand, there was a general consistency that ran through the defendants' descriptions of the attack on the female jogger: she was knocked down on the road, dragged into the woods, hit and molested by several defendants, sexually abused by some while others held her arms and legs, and left semiconscious in a state of undress.[97][98]

Edward Conlon, a writer and former New York police officer, said that Armstrong, "[i]n support of his assessment, ... offers a number of tantalizing theories, only partially undergirded by fully explored evidence".[32] He characterized the report as "resembl[ing] a defense document more than a prosecution brief in its approach, throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks".[32]

Lawsuits against New York City edit

In 2003,[101] 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.[102] The defendants sought $52 million.[103]

Under Michael Bloomberg's mayoral administration,[104] 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 spoke of his confidence regarding the actions of the police department. "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, [Police] Commissioner Kelly will certainly take appropriate measures. But so far we believe that the N.Y.P.D. did act appropriately."[3]

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:[105]

The charges against the plaintiffs and other youths were based on abundant probable cause, including confessions that withstood intense scrutiny, in full and fair pretrial hearings and at two lengthy public trials ... Nothing unearthed since the trials, including Matias Reyes's connection to the attack on the jogger, changes that fact.

After the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio, 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.[102][106][107][108]

An injustice was done and we have a moral obligation to respond to that injustice ... I think that the way we've proceeded was [with] an understanding that that had to be rectified, in a way that made sense and a way that was mindful and careful, but I think we're on the right track ... And I think the moral issue is quite clear and obviously was made clear by the court decisions in recent years.

The settlement was officially approved in September 2014.[101][109] 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.[110]

The five defendants subsequently sued the state in the New York Court of Claims, before Judge Alan Marin.[72] 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.[72] 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."[72]

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.[111][103]

Reaction to settlements edit

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, quoted incriminatory statements allegedly made by some of the youths after they had been taken into custody by police in April 1989.[32]

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.[112][113] 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.[113] 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.[114]

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."[115] During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump again said that the Central Park Five were guilty and that their convictions should not have been vacated.[116] The men of the Central Park Five criticized Trump at the time for his statement, stating they had falsely confessed under police coercion.[117][118] Other critics included U.S. Senator John McCain, who said that Trump's responses were "outrageous statements about the innocent men in the Central Park Five case". He cited this as among his reasons to retract his endorsement of the candidate.[119] In June 2019 Trump stated he would not apologize, saying the Central Park Five "admitted their guilt".[120][121][122]

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.[123]

Trisha Meili edit

 
Trisha Meili in 2005

The initial medical prognosis was that Meili would die of her injuries or remain in a permanent coma.[15] She was given last rites.[17] Meili came out of her coma after 12 days, unable to talk, read, or walk.[17][19] She was then treated for seven weeks in Metropolitan Hospital in East Harlem before being transferred to Gaylord Hospital, a long-term acute care center in Wallingford, Connecticut, where she spent six months in rehabilitation.[15][124][20] She did not walk until mid-July 1989.[58] She returned to work eight months after the attack.[125] 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.[58]

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.[126] She began a career as an inspirational speaker.[20][127][128] 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.[124] She continues to manifest some after-effects of the assault, including memory loss.[15][19][129][58]

Lives of the Exonerated Five edit

After being released from prison in September 1996, McCray moved to Maryland and became a forklift operator.[130] He is married, has six children, and lives and works in Georgia.[70]

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.[70] He also participated in a series of talks on criminal-justice reform and wrongful convictions.[70]

Salaam became a board member of the Innocence Project[70][131] and has advocated for criminal-justice reform, particularly for juveniles. In 2016, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama.[70] In 2017, he and Fernando Bermudez penned an op ed for the New York Daily News in support of two criminal-justice-reform measures offered by then-Governor Andrew 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.[132][133] The budget proposal passed, and the video-recording requirement took effect April 1, 2018.[134] Salaam started Yusef Speaks LLC[135] and works as a motivational speaker.[136] Salaam declared his candidacy for the open New York City Council'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.[137]

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.[130] 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.[138] Santana started a clothing company, Park Madison NYC,[130][70] and donates a portion of Park Madison NYC's proceeds to the Innocence Project.[139] Santana has also appeared with other involved men in presentations at local schools and colleges.[134]

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.[130] 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 at the University of Colorado Law School, to aid other wrongfully convicted people to gain exoneration; they renamed the project in his honor as the Korey Wise Innocence Project.[140]

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".[141] 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!"[142] Raymond Santana, on social media, urged for people to "never forget" Trump's actions.[143] Rev. Al Sharpton noted the irony of both trials taking place in the same downtown Manhattan courthouse building: "what goes around comes around."[144]

Legislative and other justice reforms edit

Because of the great publicity surrounding the case, the exoneration of the Central Park Five highlighted the issue of false confessions.[145] The issue of false confessions has become a major topic of study and efforts at criminal justice reform, particularly for juveniles.[146] Juveniles have been found to make false confessions and guilty pleas at a much higher rate than adults.[147]

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 from as of July 31, 2016 due to DNA testing.[148] 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".[146]

Members of the Five have been among activists who have advocated for videotaped interrogations and related reforms to try to prevent false confessions.[citation needed] Since 1989, New York and some 24 other states have passed laws requiring "electronic records of full interrogations".[146] In some cases, this requirement is limited to certain types of crimes.[citation needed]

Contemporaneous cases compared by the media edit

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".[29] The fourth one, on April 17, took place during the day in the park and is now tied to Reyes.[29]

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 on May 3, 1989.[149][150] 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.[149] The incident received little media coverage in May 1989, when the focus was on the Central Park case.[151] The woman's injuries required extensive hospitalization and rehabilitation.[151]

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),[152] 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 6 to 18 years in prison.[151] 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.[152] 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.[151]

Representation in other media edit

See also: The Central Park Five (film) and When They See Us
  • Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon premiered their The Central Park Five, a documentary film about the case, at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012.[153] Documentarian Ken Burns said he hoped the material of the film would push the city to settle the men's case against it.[74] On September 12, 2012, attorneys for New York City subpoenaed 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.[74] 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.[74] In February 2013, U.S. Judge Ronald L. Ellis quashed the city's subpoena.[154]
  • On May 31, 2019, When They See Us, a four-episode miniseries, was released on Netflix. Ava DuVernay 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 lawsuit by Fairstein.
  • An opera, also called The Central Park Five, premiered in Long Beach, California, performed by the Long Beach Opera Company, on June 15, 2019.[155] The music is by composer Anthony Davis and the libretto by Richard Wesley. Davis won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Music for this work.[156][157] An earlier version, Five, had premiered in Newark, New Jersey, by the Trilogy Company.[158]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Michael Briscoe, 17, was initially arrested for the rape of the female jogger, but his indictment was for riot and assault related to the attack of David Lewis, one of the four male joggers near the reservoir. In May 1990, he pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to a year in prison.[11]: ¶ 12 
  2. ^ Although Richardson and Santana had, in 2002, "candidly acknowledged involvement in criminal incidents that occurred on April 19," those admissions could not be considered in the newly-discovered-evidence analysis, which, Ryan said, was constrained to "solely ... the proof introduced at the earlier trials."[11]: ¶¶ 117–18 

References edit

  1. ^ a b "The Jogger and the Wolf Pack". The New York Times. April 26, 1989. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  2. ^ a b "Central Park Five: The true story behind When They See Us". BBC. June 12, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e Saulny, Susan (December 20, 2002). "Convictions and Charges Voided In '89 Central Park Jogger Attack". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 22, 2007. Thirteen years after an investment banker jogging in Central Park was savagely beaten, raped and left for dead, a Manhattan judge threw out the convictions yesterday of the five young men who had confessed to attacking the woman on a night of violence that stunned the city and the nation. In one final, extraordinary ruling that took about five minutes, Justice Charles J. Tejada of State Supreme Court in Manhattan granted recent motions made by defense lawyers and Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney, to vacate all convictions against the young men in connection with the jogger attack and a spree of robberies and assaults in the park that night.
  4. ^ a b Lemire, Jonathan (June 20, 2014). "$40M settlement reported in Central Park rape case". Associated Press. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
  5. ^ a b c Foderaro, Lisa W. (May 1, 1989). "Angered by Attack, Trump Urges Return Of the Death Penalty". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  6. ^ Chancer, Lynn (August 2005). "Before and After the Central Park Jogger: When legal cases become social causes". Contexts. 4 (3). American Sociological Association: 38–42. doi:10.1525/ctx.2005.4.3.38. S2CID 61900884.
  7. ^ a b c Pitt, David E. (April 22, 1989). "Jogger's Attackers Terrorized at Least 9 in 2 Hours". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  8. ^ a b "Women Under Assault". Newsweek. July 15, 1990. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  9. ^ Welsh, Susan; Schiffman, Keren; Francis, Enjoli (May 24, 2019). "Looking back at the 1989 Central Park jogger rape case that led to 5 teens' conviction, later vacated". ABC News.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Dwyer, Jim; Flynn, Kevin (December 1, 2002). . The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Ryan, Nancy E. (December 5, 2002). "Affirmation in response to motion to vacate judgment of conviction" (PDF). Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.
  12. ^ "Three Men Assaulted on Evening of 'Wilding'". The Beaver County Times. Associated Press. October 12, 1989. Retrieved June 15, 2019.
  13. ^ a b Burns, Sarah (2012). The Central Park Five: The Untold Story Behind One of New York City's Most Infamous Crimes. Vintage Books. ISBN 9780307387981.
  14. ^ a b Meili, Trisha (May 3, 2003). "CNN Larry King Weekend; Encore Presentation: Interview With Trisha Meili". CNN (Interview). Interviewed by Larry King. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Carpenter, Mackenzie (March 29, 2003). . Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on May 2, 2014.
  16. ^ "Youths Rape and Beat Central Park Jogger". The New York Times. April 21, 1989. ISSN 0362-4331.
  17. ^ a b c d Robinson, Stephen (April 27, 2003). "She was so badly beaten, the priest administered last rites". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022.
  18. ^ a b c d e Smith, Chris (October 21, 2002). "Central Park Revisited". New York. Retrieved February 13, 2013.
  19. ^ a b c d "There's a recipe for resilience". USA Today.
  20. ^ a b c "Victim in 'Central Park Jogger' case brings her lessons to high school". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  21. ^ a b "Raped N.Y. Jogger Still in Coma Woman Was Stabbed 5 Times in Head Fighting Teen Attackers". Philadelphia Daily News.
  22. ^ Farber, M. A. (July 17, 1990). "'Smart, Driven' Woman Overcomes Reluctance". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  23. ^ a b c Sullivan, Ronald (January 31, 1991). "Plea Bargain Is Accepted for Final Jogger-Case Defendant". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  24. ^ a b c d Kunen, James S.; Balfour, Victoria (May 22, 1989). "Madness in the Heart of the City". People. Retrieved June 15, 2019.
  25. ^ "When They See Us – What is Central Park Five's Korey Wise doing now?". August 4, 2019.
  26. ^ "The Central Park Five: Interview". TimesTalks. The New York Times. April 26, 2013. Retrieved June 15, 2019.
  27. ^ Burns, Sarah (June 17, 2011). "Excerpt: The Central Park Five". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  28. ^ "The Case of the Central Park Jogger". The New York Times. August 19, 1990. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
  29. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Schanberg, Sydney (November 26, 2002). "A Journey Through the Tangled Case of the Central Park Jogger". The Village Voice. Retrieved August 21, 2007. Every now and again, we get a look, usually no more than a glimpse, at how the justice system works. What we see before the sanitizing curtain is drawn abruptly down is a process full of human fallibility and error, sometimes noble, more often unfair, rarely evil but frequently unequal, and through it all inevitably influenced by issues of race and class and economic status. In short, it's a lot like other big, unwieldy institutions. Such a moment of clear sight emerges from the mess we know as the case of the Central Park jogger.
  30. ^ Audio Statement nyccpjstorage
  31. ^ a b c "The True Story of How a City in Fear Brutalized the Central Park Five". The New York Times. May 30, 2019. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  32. ^ a b c d Conlon, Edward (April 14, 2017). "The Myth of the Central Park Five". Daily Beast.
  33. ^ a b c d e Laughland, Oliver (February 17, 2016). "Donald Trump and the Central Park Five: the racially charged rise of a demagogue". The Guardian. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  34. ^ a b Bordone, Stefania; Wright, David (May 2020). "The Inconvenience of Justice: How Unmitigated Official Misconduct Almost Destroyed the Lives of Five Young Boys from Harlem". Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity. 9: 203–47.
  35. ^ Cooper, Barry Michael (May 9, 1989) "The Central Park Rape" in The Village Voice.
  36. ^ Goldblatt, Mark (December 16, 2002). . National Review. Archived from the original on December 22, 2002. Retrieved August 21, 2007. in their holding cells, the teens launched into a raucous rendition of Tone Loc's sexually charged hip-hop anthem, 'Wild Thing'. It was this phrase, misheard by a police reporter as 'wilding', which is the genesis of the now-infamous verb.
  37. ^ a b c d Didion, Joan (January 17, 1991). "Sentimental Journeys". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved June 21, 2007. This essay has also been published in Didion's non-fiction collection After Henry (1992).
  38. ^ Smith, Valerie (1998). Not Just Race, Not Just Gender: Black Feminist Readings. Routledge. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0-415-90325-4.
  39. ^ Hinckley, David (May 27, 2012). "Black radio, despite what ratings say, continues as a vital resource". New York Daily News. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  40. ^ a b c d e Wilson, Michael (October 23, 2002). "Trump Draws Criticism for Ad He Ran After Jogger Attack". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  41. ^ . Open Letter from Donald J. Trump. Archived from the original on August 22, 2016. Retrieved March 7, 2016 – via New York Daily News.
  42. ^ "Tweet". Twitter. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  43. ^ Delmont, Matthew F. (2019). "Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers". blackquotidian.org. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  44. ^ Allah, Dasun (November 5, 2002). "Marked as the Enemy". Village Voice. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
  45. ^ Bruney, Gabrielle (June 2, 2019). "All of the Central Park Five Suffered Terribly. But One of Their Stories Was Especially Horrific". Esquire.
  46. ^ Johnson, Kirk (January 6, 1986). "New York Courts Begin One-Case, One-Judge System Today". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2020. The second tenet of the new system, which will affect most state courts, is that the assignment of the cases is to be at random, in order to discourage what judges and lawyers refer to as judge shopping – in which lawyers maneuver, through pleas and other tactics, to get the judges they believe will be most sympathetic to their cases.
  47. ^ a b Sullivan, Ronald (August 7, 1989). "Critics Fault Selection Of Judge in Jogger Case". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
  48. ^ a b "Judge Denies Defense Motion in Central Park Jogger Case". The New York Times. December 21, 1990.
  49. ^ Sullivan, Ronald (March 1, 1990). "Judge Explains His Ruling in the Jogger Case". New York Times.
  50. ^ a b c d e f Leo, Richard A.; Drizin, Steven A.; Neufeld, Peter J.; Hall, Bradley R.; Vatner, Amy (2006). "Bringing Reliability Back In: False Confessions and Legal Safeguards in the Twenty-First Century". Wisconsin Law Review: 479–539.
  51. ^ "Jury in Jogger Case Deliberates for 9th Day". The New York Times. August 18, 1990. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  52. ^ "Jurors in Jogger Trial Remember A Relentless Period of Testing". The New York Times. August 20, 1990. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  53. ^ Sullivan, Timothy (1992). Unequal Verdicts: The Central Park Jogger Trials. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 144, 155–6. ISBN 0-671-74237-X.
  54. ^ a b "3 Found Guilty in Central Park Jogger Attacks". Los Angeles Times. August 19, 1990. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  55. ^ Glave, Julie (September 11, 1990). "Jogger Convict: 'Give me the Max'; Gets his Wish". Associated Press.
  56. ^ a b Mauli (AP), Steve (October 22, 1990). "In 2d Trial in N.Y. Jogger Attack, Defendants' Admissions are at Issue". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  57. ^ a b c "Shouts of 'Lie' Stun 2d Trial in Jogger Rape". The New York Times. October 23, 1990. ISSN 0362-4331.
  58. ^ a b c d "Oprah Talks to the Central Park Jogger". O, The Oprah Magazine.
  59. ^ "Lawyer for Defense Questions Central Park Jogger". Eugene Register-Guard. Associated Press.
  60. ^ a b c d Cantwell, Alice; McNamara, Joseph; Mooshil, Maria (April 9, 2013). "2 guilty in jog case". New York Daily News. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  61. ^ Sullivan, Ronald (November 8, 1990). "Witness Says Defendant Said He Held Jogger". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
  62. ^ "Jogger Trial Jury Relied on Physical Evidence, Not Tapes". The New York Times. December 13, 1990. ISSN 0362-4331.
  63. ^ a b c McFadden, Robert D.; Saulny, Susan (December 6, 2002). "A Crime Revisited: The Decision; 13 Years Later, Official Reversal in Jogger Attack". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  64. ^ Cristina Costantini, "Film Gives Voice to Men Falsely Convicted in Central Park Jogger Case", ABC News, December 21, 2012
  65. ^ Waxman, Olivia B. (May 31, 2019). "President Trump Played a Key Role in the Central Park Five Case. Here's the Real History Behind When They See Us". Time. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  66. ^ a b "Steven Lopez". The National Registry of Exonerations. August 8, 2022.
  67. ^ Cook, Lauren (June 5, 2019). "Central Park Five: What to know about the jogger rape case". amNewYork. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  68. ^ Mauli, Samuel (March 14, 1991). "6th teen gets jail in N.Y. jogger case". The Philadelphia Inquirer. AP. pp. A04. Retrieved June 17, 2019. The last of six teenagers charged in the near-fatal rape and assault of the woman known as the Central Park jogger was sentenced yesterday to 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years as part of a plea bargain. Steven Lopez, 17, pleaded guilty to robbery in the mugging of a male jogger. Charges in the woman's attack were dropped.
  69. ^ Garrett, Brandon L. (April 2010). "The Substance of False Confessions". Stanford Law Review. 62 (4): 1051–1118. JSTOR 40649624.
  70. ^ a b c d e f g Cook, Lauren; Brown, Nicole (June 13, 2019). "'Central Park 5': Where are they now?". AM New York. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  71. ^ Debnath, Neela (June 22, 2020). "What really happened to Korey Wise in prison?". Daily Express. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  72. ^ a b c d Ross, Barbara; Brown, Stephen Rex (December 7, 2014). "Exclusive: Central Park Five seek an additional $52 million after reaching $41 million settlement for wrongful imprisonment in 1989 rape of jogger". New York Daily News. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  73. ^ "Antron McCray". National Registry of Exonerations – via University of Michigan Law School.
  74. ^ a b c d Buettner, Russ (October 3, 2012). "City Subpoenas Film Outtakes as It Defends Suit by Men Cleared in '89 Rape". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  75. ^ Finn, Heather (September 20, 2019). "Korey Wise's Story in 'When They See Us' Hit Viewers Especially Hard". Good Housekeeping. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  76. ^ "'A Pure Psychopath,' Who Was Actually Guilty Of Rape In The Central Park Jogger Case?". Oxygen Official Site. May 31, 2019. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  77. ^ McFadden, Robert D.; Saulny, Susan (September 6, 2022). "DNA in Central Park Jogger Case Spurs Call for New Review". New York Times.
  78. ^ Finn, Heather (September 20, 2019). "Matias Reyes's Confession Exonerated the Central Park Five — But Not Until 2002". Good Housekeeping. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  79. ^ "Portrait of a Serial Rapist". ABC News. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  80. ^ a b c Griffin, Annaliese. "A Profile of Matias Reyes". New York Daily News. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  81. ^ Finn, Heather (September 20, 2019). "Matias Reyes: The Truth About the Real Attacker in the Central Park Five Case". Good Housekeeping Online. His confession exonerated the Central Park Five, as seen in Netflix's When They See Us.
  82. ^ Parascandola, Rocco (August 17, 2018). "Central Park rapist wanted to burglarize victim's apartment after the attack". New York Daily News. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  83. ^ a b c d Armstrong, Michael (January 2003). (PDF). New York Police Department. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 30, 2005. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  84. ^ Stodghill, Ron (December 9, 2002). "True Confession of The Central Park Rapist". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  85. ^ Krajicek, David J. (August 11, 2019). "The murderous Matias Reyes, the maniac who attacked the Central Park jogger". New York Daily News.
  86. ^ Joyner, Alfred (June 4, 2019). "Who Is Matias Reyes? Serial Rapist and Murderer in Central Park Five Series 'When They See Us'". Newsweek. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  87. ^ Weinman, Sarah (June 3, 2019). "Before, and After, the Jogger". The Cut. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  88. ^ Saul, Michael Howard; Sean Gardiner (June 20, 2014). "'Central Park Five' Agree to $40 Million Wrongful-Conviction Settlement (subscription)". The Wall Street Journal.
  89. ^ Parascandola, Rocco. . mcall.com. Archived from the original on November 10, 2021. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  90. ^ Innocence Project: Salaam September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Richardson September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, McCray September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Santana September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Wise September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  91. ^ Barrett, Laurence I. "Robert Morgenthau, bane of rogue banks and scofflaws, dies at 99". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  92. ^ a b Rosner, Elizabeth (July 25, 2022). "Steven Lopez, sixth member of Central Park Five, is exonerated". New York Post.
  93. ^ Bromwich, Jonah E. (July 25, 2022). "Sixth Teenager Charged in Central Park Jogger Case Is Exonerated". New York Times.
  94. ^ Fairstein, Linda (June 10, 2019). "Netflix's False Story of the Central Park Five". Wall Street Journal. Mr. Reyes's confession, DNA match and claim that he acted alone required that the rape charges against the five be vacated. I agreed with that decision, and still do. But the other charges, for crimes against other victims, should not have been vacated. Nothing Mr. Reyes said exonerated these five of those attacks. And there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first-degree assault, robbery, riot and other charges.
  95. ^ Eustachewich, Lia (June 11, 2019). "Linda Fairstein calls Netflix's 'When They See Us' an 'outright fabrication'". The New York Post. Retrieved January 4, 2021. The lawyer-turned-New York Times bestselling author said she agreed with exonerations of the rape charges against the five — but said 'the other charges, for crimes against other victims, should not have been vacated.'
  96. ^ Joyner, Alfred (July 22, 2019). "Robert Morgenthau and the Central Park Five: Manhattan DA Who Oversaw Conviction and Exoneration of Falsely Accused Black Teenagers Dies Aged 99". Newsweek.com. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  97. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k McFadden, Robert D. (2003). "Boys' Guilt Likely in Rape of Jogger, Police Panel Says". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 19, 2018. A panel commissioned by the New York City Police Department concluded yesterday that there was no misconduct in the 1989 investigation of the Central Park jogger case, and said that five Harlem men whose convictions were thrown out by a judge last month had most likely participated in the beating and rape of the jogger. The panel also disputed the claim of Matias Reyes, a convicted killer and serial rapist, that he alone had raped the jogger. It was his confession last year that led to a sweeping re-examination of the infamous case by prosecutors, and to a reversal of all the original convictions against the five defendants.
  98. ^ a b c Hirschkorn, Phil (January 28, 2003). "Police panel slams decision to absolve men in Central Park jogger case". CNN.
  99. ^ Ross, Jeffrey Ian (2013). Encyclopedia of Street Crime in America. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781452274454.
  100. ^ Dwyer, Jim; Flynn, Kevin (November 2, 2002). "2 Prominent Lawyers to Review Police Inquiry into Central Park Jogger Case". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  101. ^ a b Weiser, Benjamin (September 5, 2014). "Settlement Is Approved in Central Park Jogger Case, but New York Deflects Blame". New York Times.
  102. ^ a b Weiser, Benjamin (June 19, 2014). "5 Exonerated in Central Park Jogger Case Agree to Settle Suit for $40 Million". New York Times.
  103. ^ a b Brown, Stephen Rex (June 9, 2019). "Central Park Five received additional $3.9 million from the state in 2016". New York Daily News.
  104. ^ Ax, Joseph (June 20, 2014). "N.Y. City to pay $40 million to end 'Central Park Jogger' lawsuit: source". Reuters. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  105. ^ Eligon, John (April 19, 2011). "New York Won't Settle Suits in Central Park Jogger Case". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  106. ^ Sanchez, Ray; Allie Malloy (June 26, 2014). "New York City comptroller approves $40 million settlement for Central Park Five". CNN.
  107. ^ Barry, Andrew (November 12, 2013). "Central Park Five Lawsuit: New York City Mayor-Elect Bill De Blasio Agrees To Settle Decade-Long Case Over Wrongful Convictions". International Business Times.
  108. ^ "New York close to settling Central Park jogger case, reportedly for $40 million". Los Angeles Times. June 20, 2014.
  109. ^ "U.S. judge approves $41 million settlement of 'Central Park Jogger' suit". Reuters. September 5, 2014. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  110. ^ . Gothamist. Archived from the original on September 8, 2014.
  111. ^ Fuster, Jeremy (June 9, 2019). "Central Park 5 Received Additional $3.9 Million Settlement From New York in 2016 (Report)". The Wrap. Retrieved June 15, 2019.
  112. ^ "New York Reaches $40M Settlement in Central Park Jogger Case". NBC News. June 20, 2014.
  113. ^ a b Dwyer, Jim (June 24, 2014). "Suit in Jogger Case May Be Settled, but Questions Aren't". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 25, 2014.
  114. ^ Welsh, Susan (May 23, 2019). "'I so wish the case hadn't been settled': 1989 Central Park jogger believes more than 1 person attacked her". ABC News. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
  115. ^ Trump, Donald (June 21, 2014). "Donald Trump: Central Park Five settlement is a 'disgrace'". Daily News. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  116. ^ Holmes, Steven A. (October 7, 2016). "Reality Check: Donald Trump and the Central Park 5". CNN. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
  117. ^ Salaam, Yusef (October 12, 2016). "I'm one of the Central Park Five. Donald Trump won't leave me alone". Chicago Tribune.
  118. ^ Patters, Brandon Ellington (October 7, 2016). "Exclusive: Central Park Five Members Blast Trump for Insisting They're Guilty". Mother Jones.
  119. ^ Fuller, Matt (October 8, 2016). "John McCain Unendorses Donald Trump". Huffington Post.
  120. ^ Ransom, Jan (June 18, 2019). "Trump Will Not Apologize for Calling for Death Penalty Over Central Park Five". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  121. ^ "Trump digs in on Central Park 5: 'They admitted their guilt'". NBC News. June 19, 2019. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  122. ^ Morin, Rebecca. "'They admitted their guilt': 30 years of Trump's comments about the Central Park Five". USA Today. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  123. ^ Welsh, Susan; Schiffman, Keren; Francis, Enjoli. "'I so wish the case hadn't been settled': 1989 Central Park jogger believes more than 1 person attacked her". ABC News. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  124. ^ a b Parker-Pope, Tara (April 20, 2009). "Central Park Jogger Still Running 20 Years Later". The New York Times. Well Blog. ISSN 0362-4331.
  125. ^ O'Shaughnessy, Patrice (April 11, 2009). "Central Park Jogger recalls nothing of attack, but is now 'happy and okay'". Daily News. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  126. ^ "'When They See Us' Transforms Its Victims Into Heroes". The New York Times. May 30, 2019. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  127. ^ Meili, Trisha (2003). I Am the Central Park Jogger. Scribner. ISBN 0-7432-4437-0.
  128. ^ Fioti, Camille (May 28, 2010). "LCCC grads hear healing story from Central Park jogger". Times Leader. Retrieved December 10, 2017.
  129. ^ Lee, Linda (April 27, 2003). "A Night Out With/Trisha Meili – Something to Celebrate". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  130. ^ a b c d Bruney, Gabrielle (June 8, 2019). "The Central Park Five Survived a Horrifying Miscarriage of Justice. Here's What Came Next". Esquire.
  131. ^ "About: Board of Directors". Innocence Project. 2019. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  132. ^ Salaam, Yusef; Bermudez, Fernando (March 20, 2017). "The moral imperative of preventing wrongful convictions in New York: The Legislature must pass measures supported by Gov. Cuomo". New York Daily News.
  133. ^ "Exonerees Urge New York Legislators to Pass Wrongful Conviction Reforms". Innocence Project. March 21, 2017.
  134. ^ a b Innocence Staff (April 5, 2018). "New York State Law Requiring Video Recording of Interrogations Takes Effect". Innocence Project. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  135. ^ "Dr. Yusef Salaam". Yusef Speaks LLC.
  136. ^ Herzog, Kenny (June 13, 2019). "Where the Key Figures From When They See Us Are Now". Vulture.
  137. ^ "Exonerated Central Park Five member Yusef Salaam wins New York City Council seat". CBS New York. November 7, 2023. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  138. ^ Dwyer, Jim (December 24, 2002). "Man Cleared in Jogger Case Goes Free at the Age of 28 (Published 2002)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
  139. ^ Joyner, Alfred (June 6, 2019). "Who Is Raymond Santana? How Central Park Five Victim Inspired Ava DuVernay to Make 'When They See Us'". Newsweek.
  140. ^ Finn, Heather (June 5, 2019). "'When They See Us' Reveals the Heartbreaking Truth About Korey Wise". Good Housekeeping. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  141. ^ Daniels, Cheyanne M. (March 31, 2023). "Central Park Five defendant calls Trump indictment 'karma'". The Hill. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  142. ^ "Exonerated Central Park 5 member Yusef Salaam responds to Trump charges with full-page ad". Yahoo News. April 5, 2023. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  143. ^ Alfonseca, Kiara (April 5, 2023). "'Karma': Trump's indictment prompts reaction from Central Park 'Exonerated Five'". ABC News. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  144. ^ "Exonerated Central Park 5 Member Reacts to Trump Indictment With One-Word Statement". www.commondreams.org. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  145. ^ Starr, Douglas (December 9, 2013). "The Interview: Do police interrogation techniques produce false confessions?". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 4, 2019. Of the three hundred and eleven people exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing, more than a quarter had given false confessions—including those convicted in such notorious cases as the Central Park Five.
  146. ^ a b c Storey, Kate (June 1, 2019). "'When They See Us' Shows The Disturbing Truth About How False Confessions Happen". Esquire. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  147. ^ Fattal, Ayleen Barbel (October 17, 2013). "Interrogations can lead to false confessions by juveniles, study finds". Medical Xpress. Retrieved July 3, 2019.
  148. ^ "Wrongful Convictions and DNA Exonerations: Understanding the Role of Forensic Science". National Institute of Justice. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
  149. ^ a b "Woman Is Raped and Thrown From a Roof". The New York Times. Associated Press. May 4, 1989. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 18, 2019. The woman told investigators that she was approached by three men, who forced her onto the building's roof, raped and sodomized her and threw her off the roof
  150. ^ . Chicago Tribune. New York Daily News. June 26, 1989. Archived from the original on October 11, 2018. Retrieved June 21, 2019. slashed her lip before he and Prescott shoved the woman into an air shaft, authorities said. There she lay, half naked, moaning and crying for help until a neighbor heard her.
  151. ^ a b c d "2 Men Get 6 to 18 Years for Rape in Brooklyn". The New York Times. October 2, 1990. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  152. ^ a b "Youth Gets Prison Sentence for Rape on Brooklyn Roof". The New York Times. October 11, 1990. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
  153. ^ "NYC is pressed to settle Central Park jogger case". USA Today. April 6, 2013.
  154. ^ Gardner, Eriq (February 19, 2013). "Ken Burns Wins Fight Against New York City Over 'Central Park Five' Research". The Hollywood Reporter.
  155. ^ Anne Midgette, "'The Central Park Five,' in song: Composer Anthony Davis on his new opera", The Washington Post, June 23, 2019
  156. ^ The Central Park Five, by Anthony Davis The Pulitzer Prizes
  157. ^ Gelt, Jessica; Easter, Makeda (May 4, 2020). "'Central Park Five' composer Anthony Davis wins the Pulitzer Prize for music". Yahoo! News.
  158. ^ Cooper, Michael (May 30, 2019). "This Summer, Opera Grapples With Race". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 8, 2019.

Further reading edit

  • . The Buffalo News. April 9, 2013. Archived from the original on June 6, 2013. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  • Michael F. Armstrong, et al. (January 27, 2003)
  • Burns, Sarah (2011). The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26614-9.
  • Byfield, Natalie P. (2014). Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Conlon, Edward (October 10, 2014). "The myth of the Central Park Five". Daily Beast., opinion article by NYPD retired detective who disagreed with the exoneration and settlement
  • Connor, Tracy (December 12, 2004). . New York Daily News. Archived from the original on December 12, 2004.
  • Didion, Joan (January 17, 1991). "New York: Sentimental Journeys". The New York Review of Books. ISSN 0028-7504. The essay was also included in Didion's 1992 book After Henry.
  • Gray, Madison (January 8, 2013). "Q&A: The Wrongly Convicted Central Park Five on Their Documentary, Delayed Justice and Why They're Not Bitter". Time.
  • Kassin, Saul (November 1, 2002). "Opinion: False confessions and the jogger case". The New York Times. p. A31.
  • O'Shaughnessy, Patrice (April 12, 2009). . New York Daily News. Archived from the original on April 15, 2009. Retrieved April 12, 2009.
  • 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.
  • Sullivan, Timothy (1992). Unequal Verdicts: The Central Park Jogger Trials. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-74237-X.
  • McKenna, Thomas (1996). Manhattan North Homicide: Detective First Grade. St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-14010-X.

External links edit

  •   Media related to Central Park jogger case at Wikimedia Commons
  • "New York City Law Department"., court records including videos of confessions
  • Case docket: In re McRay, Richardson, Santana, Wise and Salaam Litigation, December 2003 filing of lawsuit against NYC
  • "Interview: The Central Park Five". Times Talks. The New York Times. April 26, 2013., 1 hr, 28 minutes

April 12, 2024
central, park, jogger, case, this, article, multiple, issues, please, help, improve, discuss, these, issues, talk, page, learn, when, remove, these, template, messages, this, article, relies, excessively, references, primary, sources, please, improve, this, ar. This article has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these template messages This article relies excessively on references to primary sources Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources Find sources Central Park jogger case news newspapers books scholar JSTOR March 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Central Park jogger case news newspapers books scholar JSTOR April 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message Learn how and when to remove this template message 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 in Central Park in Manhattan New York on April 19 1989 1 2 On the night of the attack dozens of teenagers had entered the park and there were reports of muggings and physical assaults 2 Central Park jogger caseCentral Park sign honoring the exoneratedLocationCentral Park New York CityDateApril 19 1989 1989 04 19 9 00 10 00 p m EDT Attack typeRapeInjuredTrisha MeiliPerpetratorMatias ReyesVerdictRichardson guilty on all counts McCray Salaam and Santana not guilty of attempted murder guilty on remaining counts Wise not guilty of attempted murder and rape guilty on remaining counts All convictions vacated in 2002ChargesAssault Robbery Riot Rape Sexual abuse Attempted murderSentenceRichardson McCray Salaam Santana 5 10 years in juvenile detention paroled after 6 7 years Wise 15 years in prison released after 13 years LitigationLawsuit by five of the wrongly convicted against New York City for discrimination and emotional distress settled for 41 million Lawsuit by five of the wrongly convicted against New York State settled for 3 9 millionSix 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 3 More than a decade after the attack while incarcerated for attacking five other women in 1989 serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the Meili assault and claimed he was the only actor DNA evidence confirmed his involvement 4 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 discrimination and inequality in the legal system and the media 5 6 7 8 All five defendants sued the City of New York for malicious prosecution racial discrimination and emotional distress the city settled the suit in 2014 for 41 million Contents 1 Attacks 1 1 Rape of Trisha Meili 2 Arrests and investigation 2 1 Arrests of Lopez McCray Richardson Salaam Santana and Wise 2 1 1 Confessions 2 2 April 21 press conference 3 Media coverage 4 1989 1991 criminal actions 4 1 Pre trial hearings 4 2 Trials 4 2 1 First trial 4 2 2 Second trial 4 2 3 Criticism of the jury verdicts 4 3 Lopez s plea deal 4 4 Appeals 5 Incarceration 6 Discovery of assailant 7 Convictions of the Five and Lopez vacated 8 Aftermath 8 1 Armstrong Report 8 2 Lawsuits against New York City 8 2 1 Reaction to settlements 8 3 Trisha Meili 8 4 Lives of the Exonerated Five 8 5 Legislative and other justice reforms 9 Contemporaneous cases compared by the media 10 Representation in other media 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 Further reading 15 External linksAttacks edit nbsp North Woods one of several places where crimes were reportedAt 9 00 p m on April 19 1989 a group of an estimated 20 9 to 32 teenagers who lived in East Harlem entered Manhattan s Central Park at an entrance in Harlem near Central Park North 10 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 11 Within the North Woods between 102nd and 105th Street assailants were reported attacking several bicyclists hurling rocks at a cab and attacking a pedestrian whom they robbed of his food and beer and left unconscious 10 11 The teenagers roamed south along the park s East Drive and the 97th Street transverse between 9 00 and 10 00 p m 10 Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9 00 and 10 00 p 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 10 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 10 And Gerald Malone and Patricia Dean riding on a tandem bike 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 10 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 50 p m 11 7 David Lewis testified that he was attacked and robbed about 9 25 9 40 p m 10 Robert Garner said he was assaulted at about 9 30 p m 10 David Good testified he was attacked at about 9 47 p m 10 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 11 7 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 12 Rape of Trisha Meili edit nbsp Map of north half of Central Park within Manhattan showing the approximate location where Trisha Meili was found after being assaulted Patricia Trisha Ellen Meili 13 a 28 year old 14 15 was going for a regular run in Central Park shortly before 9 00 p m 11 16 While jogging she was knocked down dragged nearly 300 feet 91 m off the roadway 11 26 and violently physically and sexually assaulted 10 17 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 10 18 17 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 14 Meili was so badly injured that she was in a coma for 12 days She had severe hypothermia severe brain damage severe hemorrhagic shock loss of 75 80 percent of her blood and internal bleeding 15 19 20 21 Her skull had been fractured so badly that her left eye was dislodged from its socket which in turn was fractured in 21 places 15 19 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 characterized the attack on the jogger as one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980 s 22 Arrests and investigation editArrests of Lopez McCray Richardson Salaam Santana and Wise edit Police took custody of Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson both 14 years of age at approximately 10 15 p m on Central Park West and 102nd Street 10 11 18 Steven Lopez 15 11 12 was also arrested within an hour of several other attacks being reported to police 23 He was also interrogated 24 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 11 Korey Wise then known as Kharey Wise 16 accompanied Salaam for questioning because they were friends but was questioned himself 18 25 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 26 27 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 28 29 Confessions edit 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 10 Santana McCray and Richardson made video statements in the presence of parents 10 Wise made several statements unaccompanied by any parent guardian or counsel 10 Lopez was interviewed on videotape in the presence of his parents on April 21 1989 beginning at 3 30 a 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 30 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 31 According to a later statement by District Attorney Nancy Ryan a ll five implicated themselves in a number of the crimes which had occurred in the park 11 10 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 31 11 91 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 11 92 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 11 84 Their confessions varied as to who they identified as having participated in the rape including naming several youths who were never questioned 11 86 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 11 84 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 confessions While the confessions were videotaped the hours of interrogation that preceded the confessions were not 29 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 32 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 11 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 18 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 33 Within two weeks of their confessions each of the suspects recanted 34 210 They argued that their statements were coerced by police and that their rights to counsel and Miranda warnings had been violated 34 210 April 21 press conference edit 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 7 New York City senior detectives said the term wilding was used by the suspects when describing their actions to police 7 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 35 36 Media coverage editAt 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 18 New York Governor Mario Cuomo told the New York Post This is the ultimate shriek of alarm 37 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 37 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 about the attack on the female jogger 21 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 published a cautionary editorial against the use of labels and questioning why such well adjusted youngsters could have committed such a savage crime 1 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 38 Reverend Calvin O Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem 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 37 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 station WLIB continued to cover the case as it progressed 37 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 8 The Open Line hosts on WRKS were credited with helping continue to cover the case until the convicted youths were cleared in 2002 of the crime 39 nbsp The full page advertisement was taken out by Trump in the May 1 1989 issue of the Daily News On May 1 1989 Donald Trump at the time a real estate magnate called for the return of the death penalty 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 5 40 The advertisement which cost an estimated US 85 000 equivalent to 209 000 in 2023 5 40 said in part Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts I do not think so I want to hate these muggers and murderers They should be forced to suffer Yes Mayor Koch I want to hate these murderers and I always will How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits Criminals must be told that their Civil Liberties End When an Attack On Our Safety Begins 41 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 42 43 According to defendant Yusef Salaam quoted in a February 2016 article in The Guardian Trump was the fire starter in 1989 as common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty 33 Salaam said his family received death threats after papers ran Trump s full page ad urging the death penalty 33 1989 1991 criminal actions editOn 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 11 24 a 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 29 Each pleaded not guilty The families of Lopez 23 Richardson 24 and Salaam 44 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 24 Classified as an adult at 16 Korey Wise was separated from the others and held in an adult jail at Rikers Island until trial 45 Pre trial hearings edit 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 46 judges were generally assigned by lottery but the court administrator assigned him to this case 47 48 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 47 48 Defendants challenged the use of the videotaped confessions and statements arguing that the confessions were coerced and that they had not been properly Mirandized 49 50 500 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 50 500 Galligan ruled that the statements were admissible finding that they were made voluntarily 50 481 500 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 50 500 Trials edit First trial edit 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 51 The jury consisted of four white Americans four black Americans three Hispanic Americans and one Asian American 52 Meili testified at the trial but her identity was not given to the court None of the three defense attorneys cross examined her 11 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 53 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 54 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 g ive me the max as s ooner 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 54 Salaam and McCray were 15 years old and Santana 14 years old at the time of the crime 11 10 Judge Thomas B Galligan sentenced each of the defendants to the maximum allowed for juveniles 5 10 years each in a youth correctional facility 11 55 Second trial edit The second trial of Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise began October 22 1990 56 and also lasted about two months ending in December 11 Kevin Richardson 14 years old at the time of the crime had been free on 25 000 bail before the trial 57 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 57 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 57 They contended that the confessions had been coerced from youths vulnerable to pressure because of their age and their intellectual capacity 56 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 58 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 59 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 60 He was sentenced to 5 10 years in a juvenile facility 11 Korey Wise 16 years old at the time of the crime was acquitted of rape and attempted murder 60 At trial Melody Jackson the sister of one of Wise s friends testified that while incarcerated in the Rikers Island he had told her that he had restrained and fondled the jogger 61 Wise was convicted of lesser charges of sexual abuse assault and riot in the attack on the female jogger and on Loughlin 60 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 11 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 60 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 introduced by the prosecutors semen grass dirt and two hairs described as consistent with the victim s hair 11 6 that were recovered from Richardson s underpants 62 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 29 In total 14 men were tested including the defendants and Meili s former boyfriend and all were excluded 29 The semen belonged to another unidentified male 29 Years later more advanced DNA testing also revealed that the hairs in Richardson s clothes did not match the victim 63 Criticism of the jury verdicts edit In a 1991 article Joan Didion suggested the verdicts stemmed from 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 64 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 33 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 33 In 2019 Time magazine also assessed Trump s ads in 1989 as having adversely affected the case for the defendants 65 Lopez s plea deal edit Like the five others Lopez was indicted for charges related to the attacks on both Meili and Loughlin 66 He denied any knowledge of the rape in his videotaped confession but was implicated by other defendants statements 66 67 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 for their own safety according to Lederer the prosecution s case was extremely weak 23 He was sentenced in March 1991 to 1 1 2 to 4 1 2 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 68 Appeals edit Four of the six all but Santana and Lopez appealed their convictions 11 varyingly challenging Judge Galligan s decision to admit their confessions 50 482 and whether their confessions were sufficiently corroborated by other evidence 69 1091 Their convictions were upheld 50 482 Incarceration editThrough 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 31 Richardson Salaam and Santana attended classes and earned a GED and also completed an associate degree while there 70 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 71 He was released in August 2002 the last of the five men to leave prison 29 72 Santana was released in 1995 McCray in 1996 and Salaam and Richardson in 1997 Wise was released in August 2002 73 Discovery of assailant editIn 2001 Matias Reyes met Wise when they were held at the Auburn Correctional Facility in upstate New York 74 75 76 77 Reyes subsequently informed a corrections officer that he had raped Meili 78 79 80 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 4 80 He also said that he had intended to burglarize the victim s apartment 81 82 Reyes was then working at an East Harlem convenience store on Third Avenue and 102nd Street and living in a van on the street 80 13 115 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 recovered in the two cases 83 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 83 During the summer of 1989 Reyes raped four women killing one and was interrupted after robbing a fifth he was sentenced to 33 1 2 years to life after he pleaded guilty to the top counts in each case 11 38 District Attorney Robert Morgenthau s office was notified of the confession in 2002 11 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 29 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 found in and on the victim to a factor of one in 6 000 000 000 people 11 Reyes DNA matched the semen found on Meili and he provided other confirmatory evidence 63 84 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 11 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 11 Because Reyes s confession occurred after New York s then five year statute of limitations had passed he was not charged with the offense 85 86 87 88 Reyes claimed he came forward because it was the right thing to do 89 Convictions of the Five and Lopez vacated edit nbsp Yusef Salaam in 2009 seven years after his conviction was vacatedBased 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 11 3 4 In late 2002 Robert Morgenthau 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 11 105 108 118 Though the newly discovered evidence only related to Meili s assault Ryan found that the defendants contemporaneous b 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 11 108 115 118 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 A comparison of the statements reveals troubling discrepancies The accounts given by the five defendants differed from one another on the specific details of virtually every major aspect of the crime who initiated the attack who knocked the victim down who undressed her who struck her who held her who raped her what weapons were used in the course of the assault and when in the sequence of events the attack took place In many other respects the defendants statements were not corroborated by consistent with or explanatory of objective independent evidence And some of what they said was simply contrary to established fact 11 86 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 10 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 11 34 The five defendants convictions were vacated by New York Supreme Court 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 3 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 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 3 90 The city government also withdrew all charges against the men 91 63 On July 25 2022 Steven Lopez s robbery conviction was overturned and the indictment against him dismissed after District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a motion to vacate 92 93 According to Bragg Mr Lopez was charged and pleaded guilty in the face of false statements unreliable forensic analysis and immense external pressure 92 Aftermath editThe DA s recommendation to vacate the convictions was strongly opposed by lead detectives on the case and other members of the police department 29 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 3 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 94 95 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 96 Lawyers for the five defendants repeated their assessment that Trump s advertisements in 1989 had inflamed public opinion about the case After Reyes confessed to the crime and said he acted alone defense counselor Michael W Warren said I think Donald Trump at the very least owes a real apology to this community and to the young men and their families 40 Protests were held outside Trump Tower in October 2002 with protestors chanting Trump is a chump 40 Trump did not apologize 40 Armstrong Report edit Following these events in 2002 New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commissioned a panel to review the case To determine whether the new evidence from the Reyes affidavit and related evidence and Morgenthau s investigation indicated 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 83 97 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 Vice President and Stephen Hammerman deputy police commissioner for legal affairs 97 98 99 100 The panel issued a 43 page report in January 2003 97 83 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 97 But it disputed acceptance of Reyes s claim that he alone had raped the jogger 97 98 It said there was nothing but his uncorroborated word that he acted alone 97 Armstrong said the panel believed the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon 97 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 97 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 97 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 97 As to the five defendants the report said We believe the inconsistencies contained in the various statements were not such as to destroy their reliability On the other hand there was a general consistency that ran through the defendants descriptions of the attack on the female jogger she was knocked down on the road dragged into the woods hit and molested by several defendants sexually abused by some while others held her arms and legs and left semiconscious in a state of undress 97 98 Edward Conlon a writer and former New York police officer said that Armstrong i n support of his assessment offers a number of tantalizing theories only partially undergirded by fully explored evidence 32 He characterized the report as resembl ing a defense document more than a prosecution brief in its approach throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks 32 Lawsuits against New York City edit In 2003 101 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 102 The defendants sought 52 million 103 Under Michael Bloomberg s mayoral administration 104 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 spoke of his confidence regarding the actions of the police department 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 Police Commissioner Kelly will certainly take appropriate measures But so far we believe that the N Y P D did act appropriately 3 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 105 The charges against the plaintiffs and other youths were based on abundant probable cause including confessions that withstood intense scrutiny in full and fair pretrial hearings and at two lengthy public trials Nothing unearthed since the trials including Matias Reyes s connection to the attack on the jogger changes that fact After the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio 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 102 106 107 108 An injustice was done and we have a moral obligation to respond to that injustice I think that the way we ve proceeded was with an understanding that that had to be rectified in a way that made sense and a way that was mindful and careful but I think we re on the right track And I think the moral issue is quite clear and obviously was made clear by the court decisions in recent years The settlement was officially approved in September 2014 101 109 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 110 The five defendants subsequently sued the state in the New York Court of Claims before Judge Alan Marin 72 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 72 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 72 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 111 103 Reaction to settlements edit The neutrality of this section is disputed Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met March 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message 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 quoted incriminatory statements allegedly made by some of the youths after they had been taken into custody by police in April 1989 32 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 112 113 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 113 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 114 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 115 During his 2016 presidential campaign Trump again said that the Central Park Five were guilty and that their convictions should not have been vacated 116 The men of the Central Park Five criticized Trump at the time for his statement stating they had falsely confessed under police coercion 117 118 Other critics included U S Senator John McCain who said that Trump s responses were outrageous statements about the innocent men in the Central Park Five case He cited this as among his reasons to retract his endorsement of the candidate 119 In June 2019 Trump stated he would not apologize saying the Central Park Five admitted their guilt 120 121 122 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 123 Trisha Meili edit nbsp Trisha Meili in 2005The initial medical prognosis was that Meili would die of her injuries or remain in a permanent coma 15 She was given last rites 17 Meili came out of her coma after 12 days unable to talk read or walk 17 19 She was then treated for seven weeks in Metropolitan Hospital in East Harlem before being transferred to Gaylord Hospital a long term acute care center in Wallingford Connecticut where she spent six months in rehabilitation 15 124 20 She did not walk until mid July 1989 58 She returned to work eight months after the attack 125 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 58 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 126 She began a career as an inspirational speaker 20 127 128 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 124 She continues to manifest some after effects of the assault including memory loss 15 19 129 58 Lives of the Exonerated Five edit After being released from prison in September 1996 McCray moved to Maryland and became a forklift operator 130 He is married has six children and lives and works in Georgia 70 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 70 He also participated in a series of talks on criminal justice reform and wrongful convictions 70 Salaam became a board member of the Innocence Project 70 131 and has advocated for criminal justice reform particularly for juveniles In 2016 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama 70 In 2017 he and Fernando Bermudez penned an op ed for the New York Daily News in support of two criminal justice reform measures offered by then Governor Andrew 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 132 133 The budget proposal passed and the video recording requirement took effect April 1 2018 134 Salaam started Yusef Speaks LLC 135 and works as a motivational speaker 136 Salaam declared his candidacy for the open New York City Council 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 137 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 130 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 138 Santana started a clothing company Park Madison NYC 130 70 and donates a portion of Park Madison NYC s proceeds to the Innocence Project 139 Santana has also appeared with other involved men in presentations at local schools and colleges 134 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 130 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 at the University of Colorado Law School to aid other wrongfully convicted people to gain exoneration they renamed the project in his honor as the Korey Wise Innocence Project 140 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 141 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 amp fairness Build a brighter future for Harlem 142 Raymond Santana on social media urged for people to never forget Trump s actions 143 Rev Al Sharpton noted the irony of both trials taking place in the same downtown Manhattan courthouse building what goes around comes around 144 Legislative and other justice reforms edit Because of the great publicity surrounding the case the exoneration of the Central Park Five highlighted the issue of false confessions 145 The issue of false confessions has become a major topic of study and efforts at criminal justice reform particularly for juveniles 146 Juveniles have been found to make false confessions and guilty pleas at a much higher rate than adults 147 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 from as of July 31 2016 update due to DNA testing 148 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 146 Members of the Five have been among activists who have advocated for videotaped interrogations and related reforms to try to prevent false confessions citation needed Since 1989 New York and some 24 other states have passed laws requiring electronic records of full interrogations 146 In some cases this requirement is limited to certain types of crimes citation needed Contemporaneous cases compared by the media editThe 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 29 The fourth one on April 17 took place during the day in the park and is now tied to Reyes 29 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 on May 3 1989 149 150 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 149 The incident received little media coverage in May 1989 when the focus was on the Central Park case 151 The woman s injuries required extensive hospitalization and rehabilitation 151 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 152 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 6 to 18 years in prison 151 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 152 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 151 Representation in other media editSee also The Central Park Five film and When They See Us Ken Burns Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon premiered their The Central Park Five a documentary film about the case at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012 153 Documentarian Ken Burns said he hoped the material of the film would push the city to settle the men s case against it 74 On September 12 2012 attorneys for New York City subpoenaed 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 74 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 74 In February 2013 U S Judge Ronald L Ellis quashed the city s subpoena 154 On May 31 2019 When They See Us a four episode miniseries was released on Netflix Ava DuVernay 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 lawsuit by Fairstein An opera also called The Central Park Five premiered in Long Beach California performed by the Long Beach Opera Company on June 15 2019 155 The music is by composer Anthony Davis and the libretto by Richard Wesley Davis won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Music for this work 156 157 An earlier version Five had premiered in Newark New Jersey by the Trilogy Company 158 See also edit nbsp Law portal nbsp New York City portal nbsp 1980s portalGroveland Four List of wrongful convictions in the United States Martinsville Seven Scottsboro Boys Willie McGee convict Notes edit Michael Briscoe 17 was initially arrested for the rape of the female jogger but his indictment was for riot and assault related to the attack of David Lewis one of the four male joggers near the reservoir In May 1990 he pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to a year in prison 11 12 Although Richardson and Santana had in 2002 candidly acknowledged involvement in criminal incidents that occurred on April 19 those admissions could not be considered in the newly discovered evidence analysis which Ryan said was constrained to solely the proof introduced at the earlier trials 11 117 18 References edit a b The Jogger and the Wolf Pack The New York Times April 26 1989 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 23 2019 a b Central Park Five The true story behind When They See Us BBC June 12 2019 a b c d e Saulny Susan December 20 2002 Convictions and Charges Voided In 89 Central Park Jogger Attack The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 22 2007 Thirteen years after an investment banker jogging in Central Park was savagely beaten raped and left for dead a Manhattan judge threw out the convictions yesterday of the five young men who had confessed to attacking the woman on a night of violence that stunned the city and the nation In one final extraordinary ruling that took about five minutes Justice Charles J Tejada of State Supreme Court in Manhattan granted recent motions made by defense lawyers and Robert M Morgenthau the Manhattan District Attorney to vacate all convictions against the young men in connection with the jogger attack and a spree of robberies and assaults in the park that night a b Lemire Jonathan June 20 2014 40M settlement reported in Central Park rape case Associated Press Retrieved June 16 2019 a b c Foderaro Lisa W May 1 1989 Angered by Attack Trump Urges Return Of the Death Penalty The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved July 12 2020 Chancer Lynn August 2005 Before and After the Central Park Jogger When legal cases become social causes Contexts 4 3 American Sociological Association 38 42 doi 10 1525 ctx 2005 4 3 38 S2CID 61900884 a b c Pitt David E April 22 1989 Jogger s Attackers Terrorized at Least 9 in 2 Hours The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved July 12 2020 a b Women Under Assault Newsweek July 15 1990 Retrieved January 19 2018 Welsh Susan Schiffman Keren Francis Enjoli May 24 2019 Looking back at the 1989 Central Park jogger rape case that led to 5 teens conviction later vacated ABC News a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Dwyer Jim Flynn Kevin December 1 2002 New Light on Jogger s Rape Calls Evidence Into Question The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on March 4 2016 Retrieved March 3 2015 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Ryan Nancy E December 5 2002 Affirmation in response to motion to vacate judgment of conviction PDF Supreme Court of the State of New York County of New York Three Men Assaulted on Evening of Wilding The Beaver County Times Associated Press October 12 1989 Retrieved June 15 2019 a b Burns Sarah 2012 The Central Park Five The Untold Story Behind One of New York City s Most Infamous Crimes Vintage Books ISBN 9780307387981 a b Meili Trisha May 3 2003 CNN Larry King Weekend Encore Presentation Interview With Trisha Meili CNN Interview Interviewed by Larry King Retrieved August 16 2022 a b c d e f Carpenter Mackenzie March 29 2003 Central Park jogger writes book about her life since attack How the hell did I survive Pittsburgh Post Gazette Archived from the original on May 2 2014 Youths Rape and Beat Central Park Jogger The New York Times April 21 1989 ISSN 0362 4331 a b c d Robinson Stephen April 27 2003 She was so badly beaten the priest administered last rites The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on January 12 2022 a b c d e Smith Chris October 21 2002 Central Park Revisited New York Retrieved February 13 2013 a b c d There s a recipe for resilience USA Today a b c Victim in Central Park Jogger case brings her lessons to high school Pittsburgh Post Gazette a b Raped N Y Jogger Still in Coma Woman Was Stabbed 5 Times in Head Fighting Teen Attackers Philadelphia Daily News Farber M A July 17 1990 Smart Driven Woman Overcomes Reluctance The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 a b c Sullivan Ronald January 31 1991 Plea Bargain Is Accepted for Final Jogger Case Defendant The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 18 2019 a b c d Kunen James S Balfour Victoria May 22 1989 Madness in the Heart of the City People Retrieved June 15 2019 When They See Us What is Central Park Five s Korey Wise doing now August 4 2019 The Central Park Five Interview TimesTalks The New York Times April 26 2013 Retrieved June 15 2019 Burns Sarah June 17 2011 Excerpt The Central Park Five The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 17 2019 The Case of the Central Park Jogger The New York Times August 19 1990 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 16 2019 a b c d e f g h i j k Schanberg Sydney November 26 2002 A Journey Through the Tangled Case of the Central Park Jogger The Village Voice Retrieved August 21 2007 Every now and again we get a look usually no more than a glimpse at how the justice system works What we see before the sanitizing curtain is drawn abruptly down is a process full of human fallibility and error sometimes noble more often unfair rarely evil but frequently unequal and through it all inevitably influenced by issues of race and class and economic status In short it s a lot like other big unwieldy institutions Such a moment of clear sight emerges from the mess we know as the case of the Central Park jogger Audio Statement nyccpjstorage a b c The True Story of How a City in Fear Brutalized the Central Park Five The New York Times May 30 2019 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 17 2019 a b c d Conlon Edward April 14 2017 The Myth of the Central Park Five Daily Beast a b c d e Laughland Oliver February 17 2016 Donald Trump and the Central Park Five the racially charged rise of a demagogue The Guardian Retrieved June 11 2019 a b Bordone Stefania Wright David May 2020 The Inconvenience of Justice How Unmitigated Official Misconduct Almost Destroyed the Lives of Five Young Boys from Harlem Journal of Race Gender and Ethnicity 9 203 47 Cooper Barry Michael May 9 1989 The Central Park Rape in The Village Voice Goldblatt Mark December 16 2002 Guest Comment Certainties and Unlikelihoods The Central Park Jogger 2002 National Review Archived from the original on December 22 2002 Retrieved August 21 2007 in their holding cells the teens launched into a raucous rendition of Tone Loc s sexually charged hip hop anthem Wild Thing It was this phrase misheard by a police reporter as wilding which is the genesis of the now infamous verb a b c d Didion Joan January 17 1991 Sentimental Journeys The New York Review of Books Retrieved June 21 2007 This essay has also been published in Didion s non fiction collection After Henry 1992 Smith Valerie 1998 Not Just Race Not Just Gender Black Feminist Readings Routledge pp 16 17 ISBN 0 415 90325 4 Hinckley David May 27 2012 Black radio despite what ratings say continues as a vital resource New York Daily News Retrieved February 4 2020 a b c d e Wilson Michael October 23 2002 Trump Draws Criticism for Ad He Ran After Jogger Attack The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Bring Back The Death Penalty Bring Back Our Police Open Letter from Donald J Trump Archived from the original on August 22 2016 Retrieved March 7 2016 via New York Daily News Tweet Twitter Retrieved April 15 2021 Delmont Matthew F 2019 Black Quotidian Everyday History in African American Newspapers blackquotidian org Retrieved April 15 2021 Allah Dasun November 5 2002 Marked as the Enemy Village Voice Retrieved June 20 2019 Bruney Gabrielle June 2 2019 All of the Central Park Five Suffered Terribly But One of Their Stories Was Especially Horrific Esquire Johnson Kirk January 6 1986 New York Courts Begin One Case One Judge System Today The New York Times Retrieved August 20 2020 The second tenet of the new system which will affect most state courts is that the assignment of the cases is to be at random in order to discourage what judges and lawyers refer to as judge shopping in which lawyers maneuver through pleas and other tactics to get the judges they believe will be most sympathetic to their cases a b Sullivan Ronald August 7 1989 Critics Fault Selection Of Judge in Jogger Case The New York Times Retrieved August 20 2020 a b Judge Denies Defense Motion in Central Park Jogger Case The New York Times December 21 1990 Sullivan Ronald March 1 1990 Judge Explains His Ruling in the Jogger Case New York Times a b c d e f Leo Richard A Drizin Steven A Neufeld Peter J Hall Bradley R Vatner Amy 2006 Bringing Reliability Back In False Confessions and Legal Safeguards in the Twenty First Century Wisconsin Law Review 479 539 Jury in Jogger Case Deliberates for 9th Day The New York Times August 18 1990 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 14 2019 Jurors in Jogger Trial Remember A Relentless Period of Testing The New York Times August 20 1990 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 14 2019 Sullivan Timothy 1992 Unequal Verdicts The Central Park Jogger Trials New York Simon amp Schuster pp 144 155 6 ISBN 0 671 74237 X a b 3 Found Guilty in Central Park Jogger Attacks Los Angeles Times August 19 1990 Retrieved November 14 2019 Glave Julie September 11 1990 Jogger Convict Give me the Max Gets his Wish Associated Press a b Mauli AP Steve October 22 1990 In 2d Trial in N Y Jogger Attack Defendants Admissions are at Issue The Philadelphia Inquirer Retrieved June 18 2019 a b c Shouts of Lie Stun 2d Trial in Jogger Rape The New York Times October 23 1990 ISSN 0362 4331 a b c d Oprah Talks to the Central Park Jogger O The Oprah Magazine Lawyer for Defense Questions Central Park Jogger Eugene Register Guard Associated Press a b c d Cantwell Alice McNamara Joseph Mooshil Maria April 9 2013 2 guilty in jog case New York Daily News Retrieved February 4 2020 Sullivan Ronald November 8 1990 Witness Says Defendant Said He Held Jogger The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 16 2019 Jogger Trial Jury Relied on Physical Evidence Not Tapes The New York Times December 13 1990 ISSN 0362 4331 a b c McFadden Robert D Saulny Susan December 6 2002 A Crime Revisited The Decision 13 Years Later Official Reversal in Jogger Attack The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved July 12 2020 Cristina Costantini Film Gives Voice to Men Falsely Convicted in Central Park Jogger Case ABC News December 21 2012 Waxman Olivia B May 31 2019 President Trump Played a Key Role in the Central Park Five Case Here s the Real History Behind When They See Us Time Retrieved June 11 2019 a b Steven Lopez The National Registry of Exonerations August 8 2022 Cook Lauren June 5 2019 Central Park Five What to know about the jogger rape case amNewYork Retrieved June 17 2019 Mauli Samuel March 14 1991 6th teen gets jail in N Y jogger case The Philadelphia Inquirer AP pp A04 Retrieved June 17 2019 The last of six teenagers charged in the near fatal rape and assault of the woman known as the Central Park jogger was sentenced yesterday to 1 1 2 to 4 1 2 years as part of a plea bargain Steven Lopez 17 pleaded guilty to robbery in the mugging of a male jogger Charges in the woman s attack were dropped Garrett Brandon L April 2010 The Substance of False Confessions Stanford Law Review 62 4 1051 1118 JSTOR 40649624 a b c d e f g Cook Lauren Brown Nicole June 13 2019 Central Park 5 Where are they now AM New York Retrieved June 13 2019 Debnath Neela June 22 2020 What really happened to Korey Wise in prison Daily Express Retrieved December 8 2020 a b c d Ross Barbara Brown Stephen Rex December 7 2014 Exclusive Central Park Five seek an additional 52 million after reaching 41 million settlement for wrongful imprisonment in 1989 rape of jogger New York Daily News Retrieved February 4 2020 Antron McCray National Registry of Exonerations via University of Michigan Law School a b c d Buettner Russ October 3 2012 City Subpoenas Film Outtakes as It Defends Suit by Men Cleared in 89 Rape The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Finn Heather September 20 2019 Korey Wise s Story in When They See Us Hit Viewers Especially Hard Good Housekeeping Retrieved July 12 2020 A Pure Psychopath Who Was Actually Guilty Of Rape In The Central Park Jogger Case Oxygen Official Site May 31 2019 Retrieved July 12 2020 McFadden Robert D Saulny Susan September 6 2022 DNA in Central Park Jogger Case Spurs Call for New Review New York Times Finn Heather September 20 2019 Matias Reyes s Confession Exonerated the Central Park Five But Not Until 2002 Good Housekeeping Retrieved July 12 2020 Portrait of a Serial Rapist ABC News Retrieved July 12 2020 a b c Griffin Annaliese A Profile of Matias Reyes New York Daily News Retrieved July 12 2020 Finn Heather September 20 2019 Matias Reyes The Truth About the Real Attacker in the Central Park Five Case Good Housekeeping Online His confession exonerated the Central Park Five as seen in Netflix s When They See Us Parascandola Rocco August 17 2018 Central Park rapist wanted to burglarize victim s apartment after the attack New York Daily News Retrieved July 12 2020 a b c d Armstrong Michael January 2003 NYPD Review of the Central Park Jogger Case PDF New York Police Department Archived from the original PDF on July 30 2005 Retrieved July 2 2019 Stodghill Ron December 9 2002 True Confession of The Central Park Rapist Time ISSN 0040 781X Retrieved July 12 2020 Krajicek David J August 11 2019 The murderous Matias Reyes the maniac who attacked the Central Park jogger New York Daily News Joyner Alfred June 4 2019 Who Is Matias Reyes Serial Rapist and Murderer in Central Park Five Series When They See Us Newsweek Retrieved July 12 2020 Weinman Sarah June 3 2019 Before and After the Jogger The Cut Retrieved July 12 2020 Saul Michael Howard Sean Gardiner June 20 2014 Central Park Five Agree to 40 Million Wrongful Conviction Settlement subscription The Wall Street Journal Parascandola Rocco Crisis of conscience Matias Reyes took sole responsibility for Central Park jogger rape because it was the right thing to do recording mcall com Archived from the original on November 10 2021 Retrieved July 12 2020 Innocence Project Salaam Archived September 27 2007 at the Wayback Machine Richardson Archived September 27 2007 at the Wayback Machine McCray Archived September 27 2007 at the Wayback Machine Santana Archived September 27 2007 at the Wayback Machine Wise Archived September 27 2007 at the Wayback Machine Barrett Laurence I Robert Morgenthau bane of rogue banks and scofflaws dies at 99 The Washington Post Retrieved July 12 2020 a b Rosner Elizabeth July 25 2022 Steven Lopez sixth member of Central Park Five is exonerated New York Post Bromwich Jonah E July 25 2022 Sixth Teenager Charged in Central Park Jogger Case Is Exonerated New York Times Fairstein Linda June 10 2019 Netflix s False Story of the Central Park Five Wall Street Journal Mr Reyes s confession DNA match and claim that he acted alone required that the rape charges against the five be vacated I agreed with that decision and still do But the other charges for crimes against other victims should not have been vacated Nothing Mr Reyes said exonerated these five of those attacks And there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first degree assault robbery riot and other charges Eustachewich Lia June 11 2019 Linda Fairstein calls Netflix s When They See Us an outright fabrication The New York Post Retrieved January 4 2021 The lawyer turned New York Times bestselling author said she agreed with exonerations of the rape charges against the five but said the other charges for crimes against other victims should not have been vacated Joyner Alfred July 22 2019 Robert Morgenthau and the Central Park Five Manhattan DA Who Oversaw Conviction and Exoneration of Falsely Accused Black Teenagers Dies Aged 99 Newsweek com Retrieved July 12 2020 a b c d e f g h i j k McFadden Robert D 2003 Boys Guilt Likely in Rape of Jogger Police Panel Says The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved January 19 2018 A panel commissioned by the New York City Police Department concluded yesterday that there was no misconduct in the 1989 investigation of the Central Park jogger case and said that five Harlem men whose convictions were thrown out by a judge last month had most likely participated in the beating and rape of the jogger The panel also disputed the claim of Matias Reyes a convicted killer and serial rapist that he alone had raped the jogger It was his confession last year that led to a sweeping re examination of the infamous case by prosecutors and to a reversal of all the original convictions against the five defendants a b c Hirschkorn Phil January 28 2003 Police panel slams decision to absolve men in Central Park jogger case CNN Ross Jeffrey Ian 2013 Encyclopedia of Street Crime in America SAGE Publications ISBN 9781452274454 Dwyer Jim Flynn Kevin November 2 2002 2 Prominent Lawyers to Review Police Inquiry into Central Park Jogger Case The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 17 2019 a b Weiser Benjamin September 5 2014 Settlement Is Approved in Central Park Jogger Case but New York Deflects Blame New York Times a b Weiser Benjamin June 19 2014 5 Exonerated in Central Park Jogger Case Agree to Settle Suit for 40 Million New York Times a b Brown Stephen Rex June 9 2019 Central Park Five received additional 3 9 million from the state in 2016 New York Daily News Ax Joseph June 20 2014 N Y City to pay 40 million to end Central Park Jogger lawsuit source Reuters Retrieved July 12 2020 Eligon John April 19 2011 New York Won t Settle Suits in Central Park Jogger Case The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Sanchez Ray Allie Malloy June 26 2014 New York City comptroller approves 40 million settlement for Central Park Five CNN Barry Andrew November 12 2013 Central Park Five Lawsuit New York City Mayor Elect Bill De Blasio Agrees To Settle Decade Long Case Over Wrongful Convictions International Business Times New York close to settling Central Park jogger case reportedly for 40 million Los Angeles Times June 20 2014 U S judge approves 41 million settlement of Central Park Jogger suit Reuters September 5 2014 Retrieved July 12 2020 Judge Officially OKs Central Park Five s 41 Million Settlement Gothamist Archived from the original on September 8 2014 Fuster Jeremy June 9 2019 Central Park 5 Received Additional 3 9 Million Settlement From New York in 2016 Report The Wrap Retrieved June 15 2019 New York Reaches 40M Settlement in Central Park Jogger Case NBC News June 20 2014 a b Dwyer Jim June 24 2014 Suit in Jogger Case May Be Settled but Questions Aren t The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 25 2014 Welsh Susan May 23 2019 I so wish the case hadn t been settled 1989 Central Park jogger believes more than 1 person attacked her ABC News Retrieved December 10 2019 Trump Donald June 21 2014 Donald Trump Central Park Five settlement is a disgrace Daily News Retrieved February 4 2020 Holmes Steven A October 7 2016 Reality Check Donald Trump and the Central Park 5 CNN Retrieved October 7 2016 Salaam Yusef October 12 2016 I m one of the Central Park Five Donald Trump won t leave me alone Chicago Tribune Patters Brandon Ellington October 7 2016 Exclusive Central Park Five Members Blast Trump for Insisting They re Guilty Mother Jones Fuller Matt October 8 2016 John McCain Unendorses Donald Trump Huffington Post Ransom Jan June 18 2019 Trump Will Not Apologize for Calling for Death Penalty Over Central Park Five The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved April 15 2021 Trump digs in on Central Park 5 They admitted their guilt NBC News June 19 2019 Retrieved April 15 2021 Morin Rebecca They admitted their guilt 30 years of Trump s comments about the Central Park Five USA Today Retrieved April 15 2021 Welsh Susan Schiffman Keren Francis Enjoli I so wish the case hadn t been settled 1989 Central Park jogger believes more than 1 person attacked her ABC News Retrieved July 12 2020 a b Parker Pope Tara April 20 2009 Central Park Jogger Still Running 20 Years Later The New York Times Well Blog ISSN 0362 4331 O Shaughnessy Patrice April 11 2009 Central Park Jogger recalls nothing of attack but is now happy and okay Daily News Retrieved February 4 2020 When They See Us Transforms Its Victims Into Heroes The New York Times May 30 2019 Retrieved January 4 2020 Meili Trisha 2003 I Am the Central Park Jogger Scribner ISBN 0 7432 4437 0 Fioti Camille May 28 2010 LCCC grads hear healing story from Central Park jogger Times Leader Retrieved December 10 2017 Lee Linda April 27 2003 A Night Out With Trisha Meili Something to Celebrate The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 a b c d Bruney Gabrielle June 8 2019 The Central Park Five Survived a Horrifying Miscarriage of Justice Here s What Came Next Esquire About Board of Directors Innocence Project 2019 Retrieved June 13 2019 Salaam Yusef Bermudez Fernando March 20 2017 The moral imperative of preventing wrongful convictions in New York The Legislature must pass measures supported by Gov Cuomo New York Daily News Exonerees Urge New York Legislators to Pass Wrongful Conviction Reforms Innocence Project March 21 2017 a b Innocence Staff April 5 2018 New York State Law Requiring Video Recording of Interrogations Takes Effect Innocence Project Retrieved June 13 2019 Dr Yusef Salaam Yusef Speaks LLC Herzog Kenny June 13 2019 Where the Key Figures From When They See Us Are Now Vulture Exonerated Central Park Five member Yusef Salaam wins New York City Council seat CBS New York November 7 2023 Retrieved November 15 2023 Dwyer Jim December 24 2002 Man Cleared in Jogger Case Goes Free at the Age of 28 Published 2002 The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved February 24 2021 Joyner Alfred June 6 2019 Who Is Raymond Santana How Central Park Five Victim Inspired Ava DuVernay to Make When They See Us Newsweek Finn Heather June 5 2019 When They See Us Reveals the Heartbreaking Truth About Korey Wise Good Housekeeping Retrieved June 18 2019 Daniels Cheyanne M March 31 2023 Central Park Five defendant calls Trump indictment karma The Hill Retrieved April 6 2023 Exonerated Central Park 5 member Yusef Salaam responds to Trump charges with full page ad Yahoo News April 5 2023 Retrieved April 6 2023 Alfonseca Kiara April 5 2023 Karma Trump s indictment prompts reaction from Central Park Exonerated Five ABC News Retrieved April 6 2023 Exonerated Central Park 5 Member Reacts to Trump Indictment With One Word Statement www commondreams org Retrieved April 6 2023 Starr Douglas December 9 2013 The Interview Do police interrogation techniques produce false confessions The New Yorker Retrieved July 4 2019 Of the three hundred and eleven people exonerated through post conviction DNA testing more than a quarter had given false confessions including those convicted in such notorious cases as the Central Park Five a b c Storey Kate June 1 2019 When They See Us Shows The Disturbing Truth About How False Confessions Happen Esquire Retrieved July 2 2019 Fattal Ayleen Barbel October 17 2013 Interrogations can lead to false confessions by juveniles study finds Medical Xpress Retrieved July 3 2019 Wrongful Convictions and DNA Exonerations Understanding the Role of Forensic Science National Institute of Justice Retrieved January 22 2020 a b Woman Is Raped and Thrown From a Roof The New York Times Associated Press May 4 1989 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 18 2019 The woman told investigators that she was approached by three men who forced her onto the building s roof raped and sodomized her and threw her off the roof Community Rallies to Support Victim of Brutal Brooklyn Rape Chicago Tribune New York Daily News June 26 1989 Archived from the original on October 11 2018 Retrieved June 21 2019 slashed her lip before he and Prescott shoved the woman into an air shaft authorities said There she lay half naked moaning and crying for help until a neighbor heard her a b c d 2 Men Get 6 to 18 Years for Rape in Brooklyn The New York Times October 2 1990 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 18 2019 a b Youth Gets Prison Sentence for Rape on Brooklyn Roof The New York Times October 11 1990 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 20 2019 NYC is pressed to settle Central Park jogger case USA Today April 6 2013 Gardner Eriq February 19 2013 Ken Burns Wins Fight Against New York City Over Central Park Five Research The Hollywood Reporter Anne Midgette The Central Park Five in song Composer Anthony Davis on his new opera The Washington Post June 23 2019 The Central Park Five by Anthony Davis The Pulitzer Prizes Gelt Jessica Easter Makeda May 4 2020 Central Park Five composer Anthony Davis wins the Pulitzer Prize for music Yahoo News Cooper Michael May 30 2019 This Summer Opera Grapples With Race The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 8 2019 Further reading edit 11 Years is Too Long to Wait for Resolution The Buffalo News April 9 2013 Archived from the original on June 6 2013 Retrieved August 16 2022 Michael F Armstrong et al January 27 2003 NYPD Review of the Central Park Jogger Case Burns Sarah 2011 The Central Park Five A Chronicle of a City Wilding New York Knopf ISBN 978 0 307 26614 9 Byfield Natalie P 2014 Savage Portrayals Race Media and the Central Park Jogger Story Philadelphia Temple University Press Conlon Edward October 10 2014 The myth of the Central Park Five Daily Beast opinion article by NYPD retired detective who disagreed with the exoneration and settlement Connor Tracy December 12 2004 Crime File 48 hours Twisting trail to teens confessions New York Daily News Archived from the original on December 12 2004 Didion Joan January 17 1991 New York Sentimental Journeys The New York Review of Books ISSN 0028 7504 The essay was also included in Didion s 1992 book After Henry Gray Madison January 8 2013 Q amp A The Wrongly Convicted Central Park Five on Their Documentary Delayed Justice and Why They re Not Bitter Time Kassin Saul November 1 2002 Opinion False confessions and the jogger case The New York Times p A31 O Shaughnessy Patrice April 12 2009 Central Park Jogger case forever changed innocent victims amp the city New York Daily News Archived from the original on April 15 2009 Retrieved April 12 2009 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 Sullivan Timothy 1992 Unequal Verdicts The Central Park Jogger Trials New York Simon amp Schuster ISBN 0 671 74237 X McKenna Thomas 1996 Manhattan North Homicide Detective First Grade St Martin s Press ISBN 0 312 14010 X External links edit nbsp Media related to Central Park jogger case at Wikimedia Commons New York City Law Department court records including videos of confessions Case docket In re McRay Richardson Santana Wise and Salaam Litigation December 2003 filing of lawsuit against NYC Interview The Central Park Five Times Talks The New York Times April 26 2013 1 hr 28 minutes Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Central Park jogger case amp oldid 1218289489, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.