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The allegations
of rape on the Brooklyn playground made national headlines and
stoked fear in the Brownsville community after the woman said
she was drinking in the park with her father when the teens,
brandishing a gun, surrounded them.
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said the woman had
stopped cooperating with investigators and had given conflicting
accounts of what occurred during the Jan. 7 incident.
She had also been engaged in sexual conduct with her biological
father when the teens approached her inside the park in the
Brownsville section of Brooklyn, a statement said.
"That night, this young woman's father and the five young men
engaged in conduct that was reprehensible and wrong," Thompson
said. "But because of the lack of reliable evidence, criminal
charges simply cannot be sustained."
The woman was also refusing to cooperate with any incest
prosecution against her father, he added.
Four boys, who ranged in age from 14 to 17, were arrested in the
days after the incident and charged with rape and other related
counts. A fifth suspect, age 18, was also taken into custody.
"You can only imagine the trauma that would go along with a
charge like this hanging over a young child's head," Abdula
Green, an attorney for one of the boys, told a news conference
on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by
Alison Williams)
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