The Central Park jogger case (events also referenced as the Central Park Five Case) was a criminal case over the aggravated assault and rape of a white woman in
Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York, on April 19, 1989, occurring at the same time as an unrelated string of other attacks in the park the same night.
Five black and Latino youths (known as the Central Park Five, later the Exonerated Five) were convicted of assaulting the woman, and served sentences ranging from six to twelve years. All later had their charges
vacated
A vacated judgment (also known as vacatur relief) makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court, which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court. ...
after a prison inmate confessed to the crime.
From the outset the case was a topic of national interest. Initially, it fueled public discourse about New York City's perceived lawlessness, criminal behavior by youths, and violence toward women. After the exonerations, the case became a prominent example of
racial profiling
Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence. Racial profiling involv ...
inequality
Inequality may refer to:
Economics
* Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy
* Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups
* ...
in the legal system and the media. All five defendants sued the City of New York for
malicious prosecution
Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. Like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action ( civil or crimin ...
,
racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
, and
emotional distress
In medicine, distress is an aversive state in which a person is unable to completely adapt to stressors and their resulting stress and shows maladaptive behaviors. It can be evident in the presence of various phenomena, such as inappropriate so ...
; the city settled the suit in 2014 for $41 million.
Attacks
At 9:00p.m. on April 19, 1989, a group of an estimated 30 to 32 teenagers who lived in East Harlem entered
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
's
Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
at an entrance in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
, near Central Park North. Some of the group committed several attacks, assaults, and robberies against people who were either walking, biking, or jogging in the northernmost part of the park near the reservoir, and victims began to report the incidents to police.
Within the
North Woods
The Laurentian Mixed Forest Province, also known as the North Woods, is a forested ecoregion in eastern North America. Among others, this terminology has been adopted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Similar, though not n ...
, 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. The teenagers roamed south along the park's East Drive and the 97th Street transverse, between 9:00 and 10:00p.m. Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9:00 and 10:00p.m.
At least some of the group traveled farther south to the area around the reservoir, where four men who were jogging were attacked by several youths. Among the victims was John Loughlin, a 40-year-old schoolteacher, who was severely beaten and robbed between 9:40 and 9:50p.m. He was hit in the head with a pipe and a stick, briefly knocking him unconscious. 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".
It was not until 1:30a.m. that night that a female jogger was found in the North Woods area of the park. She had been pulled to the north some 300 feet off the path known as the 102nd Street Crossing. The path of her feet dragged through the grass was marked so clearly that it could be photographed. It was 18 inches wide. There was no evidence in the grass of footprints of multiple perpetrators. She was brutally beaten, suffering major blood loss and skull fractures; she was later revealed to have been raped.
After her discovery, the police increased the intensity of their effort to identify suspects in this attack and took more teenagers into custody. The jogger was not identified for about 24 hours, and it took days for the police to retrace her movements of that night. By the time of the trial of the first three suspects in June 1990, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' characterized the attack on the jogger as "one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980's".
Assault on Trisha Meili
Trisha Meili was going for a regular run in Central Park shortly before 9:00p.m. While jogging in the park, she was knocked down, dragged nearly off the roadway, and violently assaulted. She was raped and beaten almost to death. About four hours later at 1:30 am, she was found naked, gagged, and tied, and covered in mud and blood in a shallow ravine in a wooded area of the park about 300 feet north of the path called the 102nd Street Crossing. The first policeman who saw her said: "She was beaten as badly as anybody I've ever seen beaten. She looked like she was tortured."
Meili was so badly injured that she was in a coma for 12 days. She had severe
hypothermia
Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe ...
, severe brain damage, severe
hemorrhagic shock
Hypovolemic shock is a form of shock caused by severe hypovolemia (insufficient blood volume or extracellular fluid in the body). It could be the result of severe dehydration through a variety of mechanisms or blood loss. Hypovolemic shock is a m ...
,
loss
Loss may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Loss'' (Bass Communion album) (2006)
* ''Loss'' (Mull Historical Society album) (2001)
*"Loss", a song by God Is an Astronaut from their self-titled album (2008)
* Losses "(Lil Tjay son ...
of 75–80 percent of her blood, and
internal bleeding
Internal bleeding (also called internal hemorrhage) is a loss of blood from a blood vessel that collects inside the body. Internal bleeding is usually not visible from the outside. It is a serious medical emergency but the extent of severity dep ...
. Her
skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...
had been fractured so badly that her left eye was dislodged from its
socket
Socket may refer to:
Mechanics
* Socket wrench, a type of wrench that uses separate, removable sockets to fit different sizes of nuts and bolts
* Socket head screw, a screw (or bolt) with a cylindrical head containing a socket into which the hexag ...
, which in turn was fractured in 21 places, and she also had facial fractures.
The initial medical prognosis was that Meili would die of her injuries. She was given the
last rites
The last rites, also known as the Commendation of the Dying, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of Christian faith, when possible, shortly before death. They may be administered to those awaiting execution, mortall ...
. Because of this, the police treated the attack as a probable homicide. Alternatively, doctors thought that she might remain in a permanent coma due to her injuries. She came out of her coma after 12 days. She was then treated for seven weeks in
Metropolitan Hospital
Metropolitan Hospital Center (MHC, also referred to as Metropolitan Hospital) is a hospital in East Harlem, New York City. It has been affiliated with New York Medical College since it was founded in 1875, representing the oldest partnership bet ...
in East Harlem. When Meili first emerged from her coma, she was unable to talk, read, or walk.
In early June, Meili was transferred to Gaylord Hospital, a long-term
acute care
Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery.Alberta Health ServicesAcute care.Acce ...
center in
Wallingford, Connecticut
Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, centrally located between New Haven and Hartford, and Boston and New York City. The population was 44,396 at the 2020 census. The community was named after Wallingford, in En ...
, where she spent six months in rehabilitation. She did not walk until mid-July 1989. She returned to work eight months after the attack. She largely recovered, with some lingering disabilities related to balance and loss of vision. As a result of the severe trauma, she had no memory of the attack or any events up to an hour before the assault, nor of the six weeks following the attack. During the trial of the defendants, Meili was not cross-examined due to the amnesia caused by her assault.
At a time of concern about crime in general in the city, which was suffering high rates of assaults, rapes, and homicides, these attacks provoked great outrage, particularly the brutal rape of the female jogger. It took place in the public park that is "mythologized as the city's verdant, democratic refuge".
New York Governor
The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor ha ...
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo (, ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as ...
told the ''
New York Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established ...
'': "This is the ultimate shriek of alarm." This essay has also been published in Didion's non-fiction collection ''After Henry'' (1992).
Earlier violent incidents that night
As identified by the Morgenthau report and ''The New York Times'' in a 2002 review of the case, several acts of violence were perpetrated that night by a group of more than 30 teenagers. These were:
* Michael Vigna, a competitive bike rider hassled about 9:05p.m. by the group, one of whom tried to punch him.
* Antonio Diaz, a 52-year-old man walking in the park near 105th Street, was knocked to the ground by teenagers about 9:15p.m., who stole his bag of food and bottle of beer. He was left unconscious but soon found by a policeman.
* Gerald Malone and Patricia Dean, riding on a tandem bike, were attacked on East Drive south of 102nd Street about 9:15p.m. by boys who tried to stop them and grab Dean; the couple called police after reaching a call box.
The remaining victims were attacked by members of the large group while jogging near the reservoir:
* David Lewis, banker, attacked and robbed about 9:25–9:40p.m.
* Robert Garner, attacked about 9:30p.m.
* David Good, attacked about 9:47p.m.
* John Loughlin, the 40-year-old teacher, severely beaten and kicked about 9:40–9:50p.m. near the reservoir and left unconscious. He was also robbed of a
Walkman
Walkman, stylised as , is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Japanese technology company Sony since 1979. The original Walkman was a portable cassette player and its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term for p ...
and other items.
Three of the victims were black or Hispanic, like most of the suspects, complicating any narrative attributing the attacks solely to racial factors.
Trisha Meili
Patricia Ellen Meili was born on June 24, 1960, in
Paramus, New Jersey
Paramus ( Waggoner, Walter H ''The New York Times'', February 16, 1966. Accessed October 16, 2018. "Paramus – pronounced puh-RAHM-us, with the accent on the second syllable – may have taken its name from 'perremus' or 'perymus,' Indian for ...
, and raised in
Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania
Upper St. Clair is a township with home rule status in southern Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, situated about 8 miles (13 km) south of Downtown Pittsburgh. It is known for being an affluent suburb with a nationally recognized school distr ...
, a suburb of Pittsburgh. She is the daughter and youngest of three children of John Meili, a Westinghouse senior manager, and his wife Jean, a school board member. She attended
Upper St. Clair High School
Upper St. Clair High School (USCHS) is a public secondary school in Upper St. Clair Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania and the sole high school within Upper St. Clair School District, the township's namesake ...
, graduating in 1978.
Meili was a
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
in 1982. The chairman of Wellesley's economics department said: "She was brilliant, probably one of the top four or five students of the decade." In 1986, she earned an
M.A.
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
and an
M.B.A.
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as account ...
in finance from the
Yale School of Management
The Yale School of Management (also known as Yale SOM) is the graduate business school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. The school awards the Master of Business Administration (MBA), MBA for Executiv ...
. She worked from the summer of 1986 until the attack as an associate and then a vice president in the corporate finance department and energy group of
Salomon Brothers
Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street durin ...
, an
investment bank
Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort.
In finance, the purpose of investing i ...
.
Meili lived on East 83rd Street between
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
of Manhattan. At the time of the attack, she was 28 years old.
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
The ''Amsterdam News'' (also known as ''New York Amsterdam News'') is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by s ...
''—and the black-owned
talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featu ...
station
WLIB
WLIB (1190 AM) is an urban contemporary gospel radio station licensed to New York City. WLIB is owned by Emmis Communications, along with sister stations WBLS (107.5 FM) and WQHT (97.1 FM). The three stations share studios in the Hudson Square ...
continued to cover the case as it progressed. Their editors said this was in response to the media having publicized the names and personal information about the five suspects, who were all minors before they were arraigned. The ''Open Line'' hosts on
WRKS
WRKS (105.9 FM, "The Zone") is a radio station licensed to Pickens, Mississippi, although its studio is located in Ridgeland, Mississippi. Launched on July 2, 2009, the station's format is sports, with programming from ESPN Radio. WRKS is own ...
were credited with helping continue to cover the case until the convicted youths were cleared in 2002 of the crime.
In 2003, Meili publicly revealed her identity as the jogger in her memoir ''I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility''.
Arrests and investigation
Arrests of youths
The police were dispatched at 9:30p.m. and responded with scooters and unmarked cars. Through the night, they apprehended about 20 teenagers. They took custody of Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both 14 years of age, along with three other teenagers at approximately 10:15p.m. on
Central Park West
Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, ...
and 102nd Street. Steven Lopez, 14, was arrested with this group within an hour of the several attacks that were first reported to police. He was also interrogated.
The severely beaten Meili was not found until 1:30a.m. on April 20. Her discovery increased the urgency of police efforts to apprehend suspects. Antron McCray, 15; Yusef Salaam, 15; and Korey Wise (then known as Kharey Wise), 16, were brought in for questioning later that day (April 20), after having been identified by other youths in the large group as participants in or present at some of the attacks on other victims. Korey Wise said he had not been involved, and accompanied Salaam because they were friends. These were the six suspects indicted for the attack on the female jogger (later identified as Meili).
Police took into custody no fewer than fourteen other suspects over the next few days, and arrested a total of ten suspects who were ultimately tried for the attacks. Among them were four
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
and two
Hispanic American
Hispanic and Latino Americans ( es, Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; pt, Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include all Americans who identify as ...
teenagers who were indicted on May 10 on charges of assault, robbery, riot, rape, sexual abuse, and the attempted murders of Meili and an unrelated man by the name of John Loughlin.
Over the 48-hour period of time subsequent to the events of the night of April 19, police arrested additional suspects and interrogated numerous others. Among these was Clarence Thomas, 14, who was arrested on April 21, 1989, on charges related to the rape of the female jogger. After further investigation, he was never indicted, and all charges were dismissed against him on October 31, 1989. Also arrested in this period on charges of attacks against other persons in the park, and later indicted, were Jermaine Robinson, 15; Antonio Montalvo, 18; and Orlando Escobar, 16.
The videotaped confessions started on April 21, after the detectives finished unrecorded interrogations during which the five suspects were in custody for at least seven hours. Santana, McCray, and Richardson made video statements in the presence of parents. Wise made several statements unaccompanied by any parent, guardian or counsel. Lopez was interviewed on videotape in the presence of his parents on April 21, 1989, beginning at 3:30a.m. He named others of the group by first names in the group attacks on other persons but denied any knowledge of the female jogger. None of the six had defense attorneys during the interrogations or videotape process.
When taken into custody, Salaam told the police he was 16 years old and showed them identification to that effect. If a suspect had reached 16 years of age, his parents or guardians no longer had a right to accompany him during police questioning, or to refuse to permit him to answer any questions. After Salaam's mother arrived at the station, she insisted that she wanted a lawyer for her son, and the police stopped the questioning. He neither made a videotape nor signed the earlier written statement, but the court ruled to accept it as evidence before his trial.
Salaam allegedly made verbal admissions to the police. He confessed to being present at the rape only after the detective falsely told him that fingerprints had been found on the victim's clothing and if his matched, he would be charged with rape. He said years later, "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."
The prosecutor planned to try the defendants in two groups and then scheduled the sixth defendant to be tried last. The latter pleaded guilty in January 1991 on lesser charges and received a reduced sentence.
Prosecution of the five remaining defendants—Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam—in the rape and assault case was based primarily on confessions which they had made after lengthy police interrogations. None of the defendants had legal counsel during questioning. Many consider the interrogation techniques to have been coercive and they have been subject to wide criticism. Within weeks, they each withdrew their confessions, pleaded not guilty, and refused
plea deal
A plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or ''nolo contendere.'' This may mean that the defendant ...
s on the rape and assault charges. None of the suspects' DNA matched the DNA collected from the crime scene: two semen samples that both belonged to one unidentified man. No substantive physical evidence connected any of the five teenagers to the rape scene, but each was convicted in 1990 of related assault and other charges. Subsequently, known as the Central Park Five, they received sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. Four of the defendants appealed their convictions, but these were affirmed by appellate courts. The four juvenile defendants served 6–7 years each; the 16-year-old was tried and sentenced as an adult and served 13 years in an adult prison. The five other defendants, indicted for assaults of other victims, pleaded guilty to reduced charges and received less severe sentences.
April 21 press conference and media coverage
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.
The main suspects were a sub-group within the loose gang of 30 to 32 teenagers who had assaulted strangers in the park as part of an activity that the police said the teenagers referred to as "wilding". New York City senior detectives said the term was used by the suspects when describing their actions to police. The police described the attacks as "random" and "motiveless", saying they had "terrorized" people in the park. This account of the term "wilding" was soon disputed by investigative reporter
Barry Michael Cooper
Barry Michael Cooper is a New York City-born American writer, producer and director, best known for his screenplays for the films ''New Jack City'' (1991), '' Sugar Hill'' (1994), and ''Above the Rim'' (1994), sometimes called his "Harlem Trilogy" ...
, 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
Anthony Terrell Smith (born March 3, 1966), better known by his stage name Tone Lōc (), is an American rapper, actor, and producer. He is known for his raspy voice, his hit songs " Wild Thing" and " Funky Cold Medina", for which he was nomin ...
's hit song " Wild Thing".Cooper, Barry Michael (May 9, 1989) "The Central Park Rape" in ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
''. There was massive media coverage of the conference, with the rape and beating of the female jogger especially recounted in dramatic, inflammatory language.
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
Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal charging document in the presence of the defendant, to inform them of the charges against them. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea. Acceptable pleas vary among jurisdi ...
or
indicted
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...
. 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.
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. Common factors had been ruled out. Reporters had found that some came from stable, financially secure families; police had ruled out drugs or major robbery, and most had no criminal records. On April 26, 1989, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published a cautionary editorial against the use of labels and questioning why such "well-adjusted youngsters" could have committed such a "savage" crime.
After the major media's decisions to print the names, photos, and addresses of the juvenile suspects, they and their families received serious threats. Other residents living at the Schomburg Plaza, where four suspects lived, were also threatened. Because of this, editors of '' The City Sun'' and the ''
Amsterdam News
The ''Amsterdam News'' (also known as ''New York Amsterdam News'') is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by s ...
'' chose to use Meili's name in their continuing coverage of the events.
Reverend Calvin O. Butts of the
Abyssinian Baptist Church
The Abyssinian Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located at 132 West 138th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, affiliated with the National Baptist Con ...
in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
, 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."
On May 1, 1989, at the time a real estate 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 ho were accused of beating and raping the jogger in Central Park twelve days earlierto be afraid". The advertisement, which cost an estimated , said, in part,
According to a contemporaneous article in the ''
New York Amsterdam News
The ''Amsterdam News'' (also known as ''New York Amsterdam News'') is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by s ...
'', the ad was "widely condemned", including by then-Mayor Koch. Colin Moore, one of the attorneys defending one of the Central Park defendants, said that the ad "proved that anything is possible in America", and that "even a fool can become a multi-millionaire."
According to defendant Yusef Salaam, quoted in a February 2016 article in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', Trump "was the fire starter" in 1989, as "common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty." Salaam said his family received death threats after papers ran Trump's full-page ad urging the death penalty.
Indictments
May 4, 1989
* 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 a plea deal arranged in June 1990, he pleaded guilty to assault and was immediately sentenced to a year in prison, with credit for time served.
* Jermaine Robinson, 15, was indicted on multiple counts of robbery and assault in the attacks on Lewis and John Loughlin, another jogger near the reservoir. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty on October 5, 1989, to the robbery of Loughlin and was sentenced to a year in a juvenile facility.
May 10, 1989
Six youths 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:
* Steve Lopez, 14,
* Antron McCray, 15
* Kevin Richardson, 14,
* Yusef Salaam, 15,
* Raymond Santana, 14,
* Korey Wise, 16.
Each of the youths pleaded "not guilty". The families of Lopez, Richardson, and Salaam were able to make the $25,000 bail imposed by the court. The two other youths under 16 were returned to a juvenile facility to be held there until trial. Classified as an adult at 16, Korey Wise was separated from the others from the first and held in an adult jail at Rikers Island until trial.
Four of the six youths who were indicted for the rape lived at the Schomburg Plaza, 1309 Fifth Avenue, at the northeast corner of Central Park near 110th Street; two lived further north of there. The ones at Schomburg included friends Salaam and Wise, who lived in the northwest tower, and Kevin Richardson and Steve Lopez who lived elsewhere in the complex. They had seen each other in the neighborhood. The Schomburg was a large, mixed-income complex with two 35-story towers and an associated multi-story rectangular building. Designed for families, the complex was built in 1974 and was partially subsidized by the city and federal government; it had 600 households, in apartments ranging in size from studios to five bedrooms.
January 10, 1990
* Orlando Escobar, 16, was indicted for three counts of robbery, two counts of assault, and one count of riot-related to the attack on John Loughlin. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty on March 14, 1991, to attempted robbery in second degree, and was sentenced to 6 months' incarceration and years' probation.
* Antonio Montalvo, 18, was charged with two counts of robbery and one of assault, related to the attack on Antonio Diaz. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty on January 29, 1991, to a robbery in second degree, and was sentenced to 1 year.
Pre-trial evidence
Four of the five had confessed to police about other attacks in the park in other areas on the night of April 19, including the assault and robbery of John Loughlin, to which they said they were witnesses or participants. Salaam's unsigned statement also covered the range of actions and crimes. According to ''The New York Times'', their accounts of these other attacks were accurate, unlike their confessions to the assault on the jogger. Only Wise made any statement about the different times and locations of the jogger attack, and detectives had taken him to the park to the crime scene before he made his videotaped confession.
Each of the suspects had made different errors in time and place about the jogger attack in their confessions, with most placing it near the reservoir. None of the five said that he had raped the jogger, but each confessed to having been an accomplice to the rape. Each youth said that he had only helped restrain the jogger, or touched her, while one or more others had raped her. Their confessions varied as to who they identified as having participated in the rape, including naming several youths who were never questioned. In his untaped confession, Salaam claimed to have struck the jogger with a pipe at the beginning of the incident.
Although four suspects (all except Salaam) confesse on videotape in the presence of a parent or guardian (who had generally not been present during the interrogations), each of the four retracted his statement within weeks. Together they claimed that they had been intimidated, lied to, and coerced by police into making
false confession
A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interroga ...
s. While the confessions were videotaped, the hours of interrogation that preceded the confessions were not.
Numerous pretrial hearings were conducted by Judge Thomas B. Galligan of the State Supreme Court of Manhattan, who had been assigned the case. Since 1986, judges were generally assigned by lottery, but the court administrator assigned him to this case. The defense attorneys criticized Galligan as being biased toward the assistant district attorney and handing down tough sentences. The counsel of the defendants filed a motion for a different judge which was rejected. In one of the pre-trial hearings, on February 23, 1990, Galligan ruled that he would accept the videotaped confessions and Salaam's unsigned statement as prosecution evidence at trial, despite defense counsel's objections. He said that Salaam's statement was being admitted as evidence because Salaam had lied to police about his age and showed them false identification.
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.
Trials
In 1990 the six suspects (including Steve Lopez) indicted in the attack on the female jogger and other crimes were scheduled for trial. 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.
Lopez was scheduled to be tried in January 1991, after the two other groups of defendants in the rape and assault case. He had denied any knowledge of the rape in his videotaped confession, but was implicated by other defendants' statements. Like the five others, he was also indicted on charges related to the attack and robbery of Loughlin.
First trial
In the first trial, which began June 25 and ended on August 18, 1990, defendants Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana were tried. Each of the teenagers had his own defense counsel. The jury consisted of four white Americans, four black Americans, three Hispanic Americans, and one Asian American. Meili testified at the trial, but her identity was not given to the court. None of the three defense attorneys cross-examined her.
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. Salaam and McCray were 15 years old, and Santana 14 years old, at the time of the crime. As such, they were each sentenced by Judge Thomas B. Galligan to the maximum allowed for juveniles, 5–10 years each in a youth correctional facility.
Second trial
The second trial, of Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise, began October 22, 1990 and also lasted about two months, ending in December. Kevin Richardson, 14 years old at the time of the crime, had been free on $25,000 bail before the trial.
Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer had a lengthy opening statement, and Wise broke down at the defense table after it, weeping and shouting that she had lied. He was removed temporarily from the courtroom. Richardson's defense counsel made a motion for a mistrial, because of the potential effect on the jury, but the judge rejected it. The trial proceeded.
The defense attorneys noted that each youth had limited intellectual ability and said that neither was capable of preparing the written statements or videotaped confessions submitted by the prosecution as evidence. They contended that the confessions had been coerced from youths vulnerable to pressure because of their age and their intellectual capacity.
Meili testified again at this trial; again, her name was not given in court. This time one of the defense counsels, Wise's lawyer, cross-examined her. She later said in an interview on ''
Oprah
Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', b ...
'': "I'll tell you what—I didn't feel wonderful about the boys' defense attorneys, especially the one who cross-examined me. He was right in front of my face and, in essence, calling me a slut by asking questions like 'When's the last time you had sex with your boyfriend?'" Wise's lawyer had also asked her whether she had ever been assaulted by men in her life, suggested that a man she knew may have attacked her, and implied that her injuries were not as severe as they had been presented.
Richardson was the only one of the five defendants to be convicted of attempted murder of Meili, in addition to sodomy and assault of her, and robbery and riot in the attack on John Loughlin, another jogger in the park. He was sentenced to 5–10 years in a juvenile facility.
Korey Wise, 16 years old at the time of the crime, was acquitted of rape and attempted murder. At trial, Melody Jackson—the sister of one of Wise's friends—testified that while incarcerated in the Rikers Island he had told her that he had restrained and fondled the jogger. Wise was convicted of lesser charges of sexual abuse, assault, and riot in the attack on the female jogger and on Loughlin. Because of his age and the violent nature of the felony charge, he was tried and sentenced as an adult, receiving 5–15 years in adult prison. After the verdict, Wise shouted at the prosecutor: "You're going to pay for this. Jesus is going to get you. You made this up."
Jurors who agreed to interviews after the trials said that they were not convinced by the youths' confessions, but were impressed by the
physical evidence
In evidence law, physical evidence (also called real evidence or material evidence) is any material object that plays some role in the matter that gave rise to the litigation, introduced as evidence in a judicial proceeding (such as a trial) to ...
introduced by the prosecutors: semen, grass, dirt, and two hairs described as "consistent with" the victim's hair that were recovered from Richardson's underpants.
According to an FBI expert who gave evidence at the trial, all five defendants could be excluded as being the man who had left the semen samples inside Meili and on a sock. In total, 14 men were tested, including the defendants and Meili's former boyfriend, and all were excluded. The semen belonged to another, unidentified male. Years later, more advanced DNA testing also revealed that the hairs in Richardson's clothes did not match the victim.
Sentencing and appeals
After the guilty verdicts, the judge sentenced the defendants to the maximum for the charges and their ages. The four youths under 16 were sentenced to 5–10 years each. They had been held in a juvenile facility since their arrest. Wise at 16 was tried and sentenced as an adult because of the nature of the violent felony charges against him, under the Juvenile Offender Law of 1978. He was sentenced to 5–15 years.
Four of the five all but appealed their convictions in the rape case the following year, but each of the convictions was upheld.
The sentences each of them served is as follows:
* Yusef Salaam served 6 years and 8 months in juvenile detention from 1990 to 1996 and was released on parole.
* Raymond Santana served 6 years and 8 months in juvenile detention from 1990 to 1996 and was released on parole. In 1998, he violated his parole and was sentenced to –7 years' prison on drug charges. He was released and
exonerated
Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially w ...
in 2002.
* Kevin Richardson served 7 years in juvenile detention from 1990 to 1997 and was released on parole.
* Antron McCray was sentenced to 5–10 years in juvenile detention. He served 6 years from 1990 to 1996 and was released on parole.
* Korey Wise was sentenced to 6–15 years in prison on sexual abuse, assault and riot. He served 13 years and 8 months in multiple New York state prisons: Rikers Island in 1990,
Attica
Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean S ...
in 1991, Wende in 1993, and Auburn in 2001. At Auburn prison Wise would meet one Matias Reyes, who in 2002 was to confess to being the one who was actually guilty of the assault and rape of Meili, which would pave the way for Wise's exoneration in 2002.
On appeal, Salaam's attorneys charged that he had been held by police without access to parents or guardians. The majority appellate court decision upheld his conviction, noting that Salaam had initially lied to police about his age, claiming to be 16 and backing up his claim with a forged transit pass that, falsely, indicated that he was 16. This was the age at which a suspect could be questioned without a parent or guardian present. When Salaam informed police of his true age, they allowed his mother entry to the interrogation room.
Biases affecting the convictions
In a 2016 ''Guardian'' article, defense counsel William Warren was reported saying that he thought Trump's ads in 1989 had played a role in securing conviction by the juries, saying that "he poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York City and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim." He noted, "Notwithstanding the jurors' assertions that they could be fair and impartial, some of them or their families, who naturally have influence, had to be affected by the inflammatory rhetoric in the ads." In 2019 ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine also assessed Trump's ads in 1989 as having adversely affected the case for the defendants.
In a 1991 ''
New York Review of Books
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
'' article, which was the first mainstream piece arguing that the Five's convictions had been wrongful,
Joan Didion
Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer. Along with Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese, she is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won ...
suggested the verdicts stemmed from a cultural crisis, writing that "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".
January 1991 plea bargain for Lopez
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 Steve Lopez and his attorney in the court on January 30, 1991, prior to a new jury being selected for his trial. He was considered the final of the six defendants in the jogger trial. Because Lopez had not acknowledged participating at all in the rape in his statement to police, and prosecution witnesses had withdrawn from testifying, based on what they said was fear of self-incrimination or "fear ortheir own safety", according to Lederer, the prosecution's case was extremely weak. Although some of the five defendants who had been convicted had accused Lopez in their statements of the most severe violence against the jogger, these could not be used against him because of their convictions.
After agreeing to the plea deal, Judge Galligan allowed Lopez to remain free on $25,000 bail until sentencing. He was sentenced in March 1991 to to years, after pleading guilty to the mugging of jogger John Loughlin. Because Lopez was younger than 16 at the time of the crime, he was sentenced to serve his time in a juvenile facility.
Serving time
The four youngest of the five convicted defendants each served between six and seven years in juvenile facilities. Richardson, Salaam, and Santana attended classes. Each earned a
GED
The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills. It is an alternative to the US high ...
and also completed an associate degree while there.
Richardson and Salaam were released in 1997. Afterward Salaam talked about how important family was. He was part of an Islamic community and served as a spiritual leader at his youth facility, but talked about how important his mother's visits had been. He was held at a juvenile facility in upstate New York about five miles from the Canadian border and hours from New York City, but she came to see him three times a week.
Wise had to serve all of his time in adult prison, and encountered so much personal violence that he asked to stay in isolation for extended periods. He was held at four different prisons, having asked for transfers in the hope of improving his situation. He was released in August 2002, the last of the five men to leave prison.
Through this period, each of the five continued to maintain 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.
Convictions vacated in 2002
Assailant
In 2001, convicted serial rapist and murderer Matias Reyes was serving a
life sentence
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
in New York state. He had never been identified as a suspect in the Central Park attack on Meili, although he had been at large at the time. 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. The NYPD did not have a DNA database until 1994; after that, detectives and prosecutors had access to common information about DNA from evidence and taken from suspects in certain crimes. During the summer of 1989, Reyes raped four more women, killing one, and was interrupted after robbing a fifth.
In 2001 Reyes met Wise when they were held at the
Auburn Correctional Facility
Auburn Correctional Facility is a state prison on State Street in Auburn, New York, United States. It was built on land that was once a Cayuga village. It is classified as a maximum security facility.
History
Constructed in 1816 as Auburn Pri ...
in upstate New York. That year, Reyes informed a corrections officer that he had
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...
d Meili. In 2002, Reyes told officials that on the night of April 19, 1989, he had assaulted and raped the female jogger. He was 17 years old at the time of the assault and said that he had committed it alone. He also said that he had intended to burglarize the victim's apartment. Reyes was then working at an East Harlem convenience store on
Third Avenue
Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, as well as in the center portion of the Bronx. Its southern end is at Astor Place and St. Mark's Place. It transitions into Cooper Square ...
and 102nd Street, and living in a van on the street.
District Attorney
Robert Morgenthau
Robert Morris Morgenthau ( ; July 31, 1919July 21, 2019) was an American lawyer. From 1975 until his retirement in 2009, he was the District Attorney for New York County (the borough of Manhattan), having previously served as United States Attorn ...
's office was notified of the confession in 2002. Morgenthau appointed a team led by Assistant District Attorneys Nancy Ryan and Peter Casolaro to investigate the case, based on Reyes's confession and a review of evidence. Reyes provided officials with a detailed account of the attack, details of which were corroborated by other evidence which the police held. In addition, his DNA matched the DNA evidence at the scene, confirming that he was the sole source of the
semen
Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is an organic bodily fluid created to contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize the female ovum. Sem ...
found in and on the victim "to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people". Reyes' DNA matched the semen found on Meili, and he provided other confirmatory evidence. In announcing these facts, Morgenthau also said that the perpetrator had tied up Meili with her T-shirt in a distinctive fashion that Reyes used again on later victims in crimes for which he was convicted.
Based on interviews and other evidence, the team believed that Reyes had acted alone: The rape appeared to have taken place in the North Woods area after the main body of the thirty teenagers had moved well to the south, and the timeline reconstruction of events made it unlikely that he was joined by any of the defendants. In addition, Reyes was not known to have been associated with any of the six indicted defendants. He lived at 102nd Street, in what locals considered another neighborhood. None of the six defendants in the rape mentioned him by name in association with the rape.
Reyes' confession occurred after the
statute of limitations
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...
had passed and the Central Park Five had already served their sentences. Reyes claimed he came forward because "it was the right thing to do". At the time of his confession, Reyes had been convicted and sentenced to life in state prison for raping and robbing four other women in the summer of 1989, murdering one of them and robbing another. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty to the top counts in each of the five cases on November 1, 1991.
DNA analysis of the strands of hair found on the clothing of two of the defendants, conducted with advanced technology not available at the time of their trial, established that the hair did not belong to the victim, despite what the prosecution had claimed at trial.
Based on the newly discovered evidence, each of the five men who had been convicted of charges related to the rape of Meili filed motions to have their convictions set aside and for the court "to grant whatever further relief may be just and proper."
After an investigation into the defendants' innocence was conducted in 2002 by
Robert Morgenthau
Robert Morris Morgenthau ( ; July 31, 1919July 21, 2019) was an American lawyer. From 1975 until his retirement in 2009, he was the District Attorney for New York County (the borough of Manhattan), having previously served as United States Attorn ...
, District Attorney for New York County, the city withdrew all charges against the men, and the defendants' sentences were vacated. In 2003, the five men sued the
City of New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
for
malicious prosecution
Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. Like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action ( civil or crimin ...
,
racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
, and
emotional distress
In medicine, distress is an aversive state in which a person is unable to completely adapt to stressors and their resulting stress and shows maladaptive behaviors. It can be evident in the presence of various phenomena, such as inappropriate so ...
; they reached a $41 million settlement with the city government in 2013, and an additional $3.9 million in monetary compensation from the state in 2016.
Convictions vacated
In late 2002, as a result of his team's review, the confession by Reyes, and DNA testing that confirmed Reyes was the sole source of semen, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recommended vacating the convictions of the five defendants who had been convicted and sentenced to prison.
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. Nancy Ryan, an ADA in Morgenthau's office, filed an affirmation supporting motions by the defendants to vacate their convictions in December 2002:
In addition to the confessions, the filing noted that a "reconstruction of the events in the park has bared a significant conflict, one that was hinted at but not explored in depth at the trials: at the time the jogger was believed to have been attacked, the teenagers were said to be involved—either as spectators or participants—in muggings elsewhere in the park." 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." In light of the "extraordinary circumstances" of the case, the affirmation further recommended that the court also vacate the convictions for the other crimes, including robbery and assault, to which the defendants had confessed. Given that the defendants' confessions to the other crimes were made at the same time and in the same statements as those related to the attack on Meili, the DA's office argued that, had the newly discovered evidence been available at the original trials, it could have caused juries to question the defendants' confessions in those crimes as well.
The DA's recommendation to vacate the convictions was, and continues to be strongly opposed by lead detectives on the case and other members of the police department. Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly
Raymond Walter Kelly (born September 4, 1941) is the longest serving Commissioner in the history of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the first man to hold the post for two non-consecutive tenures. According to its website, Kelly ...
complained at the time that Morgenthau's staff had denied his detectives access to "important evidence" needed to conduct a thorough investigation.
Linda Fairstein
Linda Fairstein (born May 5, 1947) is an American author, attorney, and former New York City prosecutor focusing on crimes of violence against women and children. She was the head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's offi ...
, who directed the original prosecution, agreed with the decision to vacate the rape charges but said the separate assault charges should have remained. Morgenthau would later express regret assigning the case to Fairstein, saying "I had complete confidence in Linda Fairstein. Turned out to be misplaced. But we rectified it."
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. All five of the defendants had completed their prison sentences at the time of Tejada's order; their names were cleared in relation to this case. This also enabled them being removed from New York State's
sex offender registry
A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. In some jurisdictions, registration i ...
. In addition to having had difficulty getting employment or renting housing, as registered offenders, they had been required to report to authorities in person every three months. The city government also withdrew all charges against the men. 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.
Aftermath
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." Protests were held outside
Trump Tower
Trump Tower is a 58-story, mixed-use skyscraper at 721–725 Fifth Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, between East 56th and 57th Streets. The building contains the headquarters for the Trump Organization, as well ...
in October 2002 with protestors chanting, "Trump is a chump!" Trump did not apologize.
Armstrong Report
Following these events, in 2002,
New York City Police Commissioner
The New York City Police Commissioner is the head of the New York City Police Department and presiding member of the Board of Commissioners. The commissioner is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the mayor. The commissioner is responsib ...
Raymond Kelly
Raymond Walter Kelly (born September 4, 1941) is the longest serving Commissioner in the history of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the first man to hold the post for two non-consecutive tenures. According to its website, Kelly ...
commissioned a panel to review the case, "To determine whether the new evidence rom the Reyes affidavit and related evidence, and Morgenthau's investigationindicated that police supervisors or officers acted improperly or incorrectly, and to determine whether police policy or procedures needed to be changed as a result of the Central Park jogger case." The panel was chaired by attorney
Michael F. Armstrong
Michael Francis Armstrong (December 14, 1932 – October 17, 2019) was an American lawyer, based in New York City.
In 1991, ''The New York Times'' described him as "the consummate New York lawyer."William Glaberson (January 19, 1991)"Feuding Law ...
, the former chief counsel to the
Knapp Commission
The Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption (known informally as the Knapp Commission, after its chairman Whitman Knapp) was a five-member panel initially formed in April 1970 by Mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate corruption wit ...
, which in 1972 had documented widespread corruption in the NYPD. Two other attorneys were included: Jules Martin, a former police officer and now
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
Vice President; and Stephen Hammerman, deputy police commissioner for legal affairs. The panel issued a 43-page report in January 2003.
In its January 2003 Armstrong Report, the panel "did not dispute the legal necessity of setting aside the convictions of the five defendants based on the new DNA evidence that Mr. Reyes had raped the jogger." But it disputed acceptance of Reyes's claim that he alone had raped the jogger. It said there was "nothing but his uncorroborated word" that he acted alone. Armstrong said the panel believed "the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon."
The report concluded that the five men whose convictions had been vacated had "most likely" participated in the beating and rape of the jogger and that the "most likely scenario" was that "both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively." The report said Reyes had most likely "either joined in the attack as it was ending or waited until the defendants had moved on to their next victims before descending upon her himself, raping her and inflicting upon her the brutal injuries that almost caused her death."
Despite the analysis conducted by the District Attorney's Office, New York City detectives supported the 2003 Armstrong Report by the police department. The panel said there had been "no misconduct in the 1989 investigation of the Central Park jogger case".
As to the five defendants, the report said:
Lawsuits against New York City
In 2003, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana Jr., and Antron McCray sued the
City of New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
for
malicious prosecution
Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. Like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action ( civil or crimin ...
,
racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
, and
emotional distress
In medicine, distress is an aversive state in which a person is unable to completely adapt to stressors and their resulting stress and shows maladaptive behaviors. It can be evident in the presence of various phenomena, such as inappropriate so ...
. The other two defendants later joined the lawsuit. Under Michael Bloomberg's mayoral administration, the city refused to pursue a settlement for the lawsuits based on a conclusion that the defendants had had a fair trial.
Speaking at a news conference in 2002,
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
spoke of his confidence regarding the actions of the police department. "As far as I can tell, the
N.Y.P.D.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
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, oliceCommissioner Kelly will certainly take appropriate measures. But so far we believe that the N.Y.P.D. did act appropriately."
In 2011, Celeste Koeleveld, then New York City's Executive Assistant Corporation Counsel for Public Safety, gave a public statement on behalf of the city in 2011 after receiving public criticism from Councilman Charles Barron for failing to resolve the lawsuits:After a change in city administration, with the
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
of Mayor Bill de Blasio (who had run on a campaign promise to resolve the matter), the
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
settled in 2014 with the five defendants for $41 million. At a press conference in 2014, de Blasio made a public statement about the settlements.In 2016, the five men received an
award
An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration.
An awar ...
of $3.9 million against the
State of New York
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. state ...
for additional damages caused by the economic and emotional devastation caused by their incarceration.The original lawsuit had requested $51 million in addition to the previously awarded $41 million.
Settlements
Under newly elected Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City announced a settlement in June 2014 in the case for about $40 million. Santana, Salaam, McCray, and Richardson each received around $7.1 million from the city for their years in prison, while Wise received $12.2 million because he had served six additional years. The city did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement. The settlement averaged roughly $1 million for each year of imprisonment that each of the men had served.
As of December 2014, the five men were pursuing an additional $52 million in damages from New York State in the
New York Court of Claims
The New York State Court of Claims is the court of the New York State Unified Court System which handles all claims against the State of New York and certain state agencies.
Judges
Judges of the Court of Claims are appointed by the Governor of ...
, before Judge Alan Marin. 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." They received a total settlement of $3.9 million from the state in 2016, with varying amounts related to the period of time that each man had served in prison.
Trisha Meili publishes book
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''. She began a career as an inspirational speaker. She also works with victims of sexual assault and brain injury in the Mount Sinai Hospital sexual assault and violence intervention program. She had resumed jogging in 1989 three or four months after the attack, and over the years added a variety of other exercise and yoga practice. She continues to manifest some after-effects of the assault, including
memory loss
Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use o ...
.
Settlement and exonerations disputed
In 2014, after New York City had settled the wrongful conviction suit, some figures returned to the media to dispute the court's 2002 decision to vacate the convictions. Also retired New York City detective Edward Conlon, who had been involved with the case, in an article published in October 2014 in ''
The Daily Beast
''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008.
It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
'', quoted incriminatory statements allegedly made by some of the youths after they had been taken into custody by police in April 1989.
Similarly, two doctors who had treated Meili after the attack said in 2014, after the settlement, that some of her injuries appeared to be inconsistent with Reyes's claim that he had acted alone. But a forensic pathologist who testified at the 1990 trial said that it was impossible to tell from the victim's injuries how many people had participated in the assault, as did New York City's chief medical examiner in 2002. Meili, who had no memory of what happened, said at the time of the settlement that she believed there had been more than one attacker and expressed her regret that the case had been settled.
Donald Trump also returned to the media, writing a 2014
opinion article
An opinion piece is an article, usually published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about a subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.
Editorials
Opinion pieces may take the form of an editorial, ...
for the New York '' ''Daily News''''. He said the settlement was "a disgrace", and that the men were likely guilty: "Settling doesn't mean innocence. ... Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels." During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump again said that the Central Park Five were guilty and that their convictions should not have been vacated. The men of the Central Park Five criticized Trump at the time for his statement, stating they had falsely confessed under police coercion. Other critics included U.S. Senator John McCain, 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. In June 2019 Trump stated he would not apologize, saying the Central Park Five "admitted their guilt".
Legislative and other justice reforms
Because of the great publicity surrounding the case, the exoneration of the Central Park Five highlighted the issue of
false confession
A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interroga ...
. The issue of false confessions has become a major topic of study and efforts at criminal justice reform, particularly for juveniles. Juveniles have been found to make false confessions and guilty pleas at a much higher rate than adults.
Advances in DNA analysis and the work of non-profit groups such as the Innocence Project have resulted in 343 people being exonerated of their crimes from due to DNA testing. This process has revealed the strong role of false confessions in wrongful convictions. According to a 2016 study by Craig J. Trocino, director of the Miami Law Innocence Clinic, 27 percent of those persons had "originally confessed to their crimes".
Members of the Five have been among activists who have advocated for videotaped interrogations and related reforms to try to prevent false confessions. Since 1989, New York and some 24 other states have passed laws requiring "electronic records of full interrogations". In some cases, this requirement is limited to certain types of crimes.
Lives of the men after vacated judgment
Antron McCray was the first to move away from New York. He is married, has six children, and lives and works in Georgia.
Kevin Richardson is married and lives with his family in New Jersey. According to the
Innocence Project
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futu ...
, he has 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. Among their goals was required videotaping of interrogations by law enforcement; such a law was passed by the New York State legislature and went into effect on April 1, 2018.
Yusef Salaam has been an advocate for reform in the criminal justice system and prisons, particularly for juveniles. He has spoken against practices leading to false confessions and eyewitness misidentifications, which can lead to wrongful convictions. He also works as a motivational speaker. Living in Georgia, he is married with ten children. He serves as a board member of the Innocence Project. As noted, Salaam was an advocate for the law passed in New York in 2018 requiring videotaping of accused subjects in all custodial interrogations for serious crimes. In 2016, he received a
Lifetime Achievement Award
Lifetime achievement awards are awarded by various organizations, to recognize contributions over the whole of a career, rather than or in addition to single contributions.
Such awards, and organizations presenting them, include:
A
* A.C. ...
from President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
.
Raymond Santana had been out of prison for six months before he was found guilty of possession of crack cocaine in 1998 and reincarcerated for a term of 3.5 to 7 years. He was released in 2002 when the prosecutor, agreeing that his sentence had been higher due to his subsequently vacated conviction for raping Meili, reduced it to the 18–48 months that would typically have been given to a first-time offender. He currently lives in Georgia, not far from McCray. He serves as a criminal justice advocate with the Innocence Project and spoke in New York to audiences with Richardson and Salaam to advocate passage of the New York State justice reform law that passed in 2017. He has also appeared with other involved men in presentations at local schools and colleges. In 2018 he started a clothing company, Park Madison NYC, named for the avenues near his former home in New York. Some of his merchandise commemorates the men of the Central Park Five.
Korey Wise (who changed his first name from Kharey after being released from prison) still lives in New York City, where he works as a speaker and justice reform activist. He donated $190,000 of his 2014 settlement to the chapter of the
Innocence Project
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futu ...
at the
University of Colorado Law School
The University of Colorado Law School is one of the professional graduate schools within the University of Colorado System. It is a public law school, with more than 500 students attending and working toward a Juris Doctor or Master of Studies in ...
, to aid other wrongfully convicted people to gain exoneration. They renamed the project in his honor as the Korey Wise Innocence Project.
Contemporaneous cases compared by the media
The Central Park events, which were attributed at the time to members of the large group of youths who attacked numerous persons in the park, including whites, blacks and Hispanics, were covered as an extreme example of the violence that was occurring in the city, including assaults and robberies, rapes and homicides. Focusing on rapes in the same week as the one in Central Park, ''The New York Times'' reported on April 29, 1990, on the "28 other first-degree rapes or attempted rapes reported across New York City". The fourth one, on April 17, took place during the day in the park and is now tied to Reyes.
Later after the Central Park rape, when public attention was on the theory of a gang of young suspects, a brutal attack took place in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
on May 3, 1989. A 30-year-old black woman was robbed, raped and thrown from the roof of a four-story building by three young men. She fell 50 feet, suffering severe injuries. The incident received little media coverage in May 1989, when the focus was on the Central Park case. The woman's injuries required extensive hospitalization and rehabilitation.
''The New York Times'' continued to report on the case, and followed up on prosecution of suspects. Tyrone Prescott, 17, Kelvin Furman, 22, and another young man, Darren Decotea (name corrected a few days later as Darron Decoteau), 17, were apprehended within two weeks and prosecuted for the crimes. They arranged plea deals with the prosecution in October 1990 before trial; the first two were sentenced to 6 to 18 years in prison. Decoteau had made a plea deal in February in which he agreed to testify against the other two. He was sentenced on October 10, 1990, to four to twelve years in prison. Social justice activists and critics have pointed to the lack of extensive coverage of the attack of the woman in Brooklyn as showing the media's racial bias; they have accused it of overlooking violence against minority women.
Sarah Burns
Sarah (born Sarai) is a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a pio ...
and her husband David McMahon premiered their '' The Central Park Five'', a documentary film about the case, at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
in May 2012. Documentarian Ken Burns said he hoped the material of the film would push the city to settle the men's case against it. On September 12, 2012, attorneys for New York City
subpoena
A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...
ed the production company for access to the original footage in connection with its defense of the 2003 federal civil lawsuit brought against the city by three of the convicted youths. Celeste Koeleveld, the city's executive assistant corporation counsel for public safety, justified the subpoena on the grounds that the film had "crossed the line from journalism to advocacy" for the wrongfully convicted men. In February 2013, U.S. Judge Ronald L. Ellis
quashed
Quashed (foaled 1932) was a British-bred and British-trained racehorse, winner of The Oaks in 1935.
For many years, the Verdict family was not accepted into the British Stud Book because Quashed's dam was effectively a half-bred and it was ...
the city's subpoena.
* On May 31, 2019, ''
When They See Us
''When They See Us'' is a 2019 American crime drama television miniseries created, co-written, and directed by Ava DuVernay for Netflix, that premiered in four parts on May 31, 2019. It is based on events of the 1989 Central Park jogger case ...
'', a four-episode miniseries, was released on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
.
Ava DuVernay
Ava Marie DuVernay (; born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, television producer and former film publicist. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, a NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee ...
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.
* An opera, also called '' The Central Park Five'', premiered in
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
, performed by the Long Beach Opera Company, on June 15, 2019.Anne Midgette, "'The Central Park Five,' in song: Composer Anthony Davis on his new opera" ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', June 23, 2019 The music is by composer Anthony Davis and the libretto by
Richard Wesley
Richard Wesley (born July 11, 1945) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is an associate professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing.
Early life
Wesley w ...
. Davis won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Music for this work. An earlier version, ''Five'', had premiered in
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.
*An episode of the TLC series,
American Justice
''American Justice'' is an American criminal justice television program airing on the A&E Network. From 1992–2005, the show was hosted by television reporter Bill Kurtis. The show features interesting or notable cases, such as the murder ...
, featured the Central Park Five and aired in 1999, which was before the Five were officially cleared of any wrongdoing in the case. It attempts to get viewers to sympathize with the victim and portrays the Five as the actual attackers. It was not until five years after this episode aired that Reyes confessed to the crime (and was proven guilty through DNA evidence). The episode is now on YouTube but the series has not been aired on TV since the mid-2000s at least.
See also
*
List of wrongful convictions in the United States
This list of wrongful convictions in the United States includes people who have been legally exonerated, including people whose convictions have been overturned or vacated, and who have not been retried because the charges were dismissed by the s ...
Martinsville Seven The Martinsville Seven were a group of seven African-American men from Martinsville, Virginia, who were all executed in 1951 by the United States government after being accused of raping a white woman. At the time of their arrest, all but one were b ...
*
Willie McGee (convict)
Willie McGee (c. 1916 - May 8, 1951) was an African American man from Laurel, Mississippi, who was sentenced to death in 1945 and executed on Tuesday, May 8, 1951, after being controversially convicted for the rape of a white woman on November 2, ...
*
Groveland Four
The Groveland Four (or the Groveland Boys) were four African American men, Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin. In July 1949, the four were accused of raping a white woman and severely beating her husband in Lake C ...