Trump stands by comments about wrongly
convicted 'Central Park Five'
Send a link to a friend
[June 19, 2019]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday stood by claims he made about five men
who were wrongly convicted for the brutal rape of a female jogger in New
York City's Central Park 30 years ago.
Dubbed the "Central Park Five," the men have faced renewed attention
after becoming the subjects of a Netflix miniseries about them.
The attack made national headlines in 1989 as a sign that crime in the
city had spiraled out of control. The victim in the case, a 28-year-old
investment banker, nearly died from the incident and was left with no
memory of it.
Amid the intense media attention, Trump, then a real estate developer in
New York, spoke out about the case and took out a full-page ad in
several of the city's newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the
death penalty.
Asked by a reporter outside the White House whether he would apologize
to the five men, Trump said: "Why do you bring this question up now?
It's an interesting time to bring it up."
"You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt. If
you look at Linda Fairstein and if you look at some of the prosecutors,
they think that the city should never have settled that case. So we'll
leave it at that," he said, referring to one of the prosecutors in the
case.
The case raised questions about race as a factor in the criminal justice
system. All five of the men - Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond
Santana, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam – were black or Hispanic, while the
victim was white.
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/061919pics/news_g5.jpg)
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he departs for travel
to a campaign rally in Florida from the White House in Washington,
U.S. June 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
The men were all between the ages of 14 and 16 at the time of the
attack. They were imprisoned for between five and 13 years.
Though they all confessed after long police interrogations, they
each later recanted their statements, saying they had been exhausted
and coerced by police officers.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jun/19/images/ads/current/garage_sale_bch.png)
Their convictions were overturned in 2002, after another man
confessed to the crime and DNA tests confirmed his guilt.
In 2014, New York City agreed to pay more than $40 million to the
five men.
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Jeff Mason; Editing by Tom Brown)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |