Central Park jogger case

Trisha Meili was going for a regular run in Central Park shortly before 9 p.m.[8][12] While jogging in the park, she was knocked down, dragged nearly 300 feet (91 m) off the roadway,[13] and violently assaulted.[6] She was raped and beaten almost to death.[14] 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.[6][9][14] 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."[15]

Meili was so badly injured that she was in a coma for 12 days. She had severe hypothermia, severe brain damage, severe hemorrhagic shock, loss of 75–80 percent of her blood, and internal bleeding.[16][17][18][19] Her skull had been fractured so badly that her left eye was dislodged from its socket, which in turn was fractured in 21 places, and she also had facial fractures.[16][17]

The initial medical prognosis was that Meili would die of her injuries.[16] She was given the last rites.[14] 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 in East Harlem. When Meili first emerged from her coma, she was unable to talk, read, or walk.[14][17]

In early June, Meili was transferred to Gaylord Hospital, a long-term acute care center in Wallingford, Connecticut, where she spent six months in rehabilitation.[16][20][18] She did not walk until mid-July 1989.[21] She returned to work eight months after the attack.[22] 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.[21] During the trial of the defendants, Meili was not cross-examined due to the amnesia caused by her assault.[23]

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".[9] New York Governor Mario Cuomo told the New York Post: "This is the ultimate shriek of alarm."[24]

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:[6][8]

• Michael Vigna, a competitive bike rider hassled about 9:05 p.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 9:15 p.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 9:15 p.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 9:25–9:40
• Robert Garner, attacked about 9:30 p.m.
• David Good, attacked about 9:47 p.m.
• John Loughlin, the 40-year-old teacher, severely beaten and kicked about 9:40–9:50 p.m. near the reservoir and left unconscious. He was also robbed of a Walkman 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.[1]

The police were dispatched at 9:30 pm and responded with scooters and unmarked cars. Through the night, they apprehended about 20 teenagers. They took custody of Raymond Santana, 14; and Kevin Richardson, 14; along with three other teenagers at approximately 10:15 pm on Central Park West and 102nd Street.[6][8][9] Steven Lopez, 14, was arrested with this group within an hour of the several attacks that were first reported to police.[34] He was also interrogated.[35]

The severely beaten Meili was not found until 1:30 a.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.[8] Korey Wise said he had not been involved, and accompanied Salaam because they were friends.[9] These were the six suspects indicted for the attack on the female jogger (later identified as Meili).

They took into custody 14 or more 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 and two Hispanic American 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, John Loughlin.

The police arrested additional suspects over 48 hours after the night of April 19 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.[8] Also arrested in this period on charges of attacks against other persons in the park, and later indicted, was Jermaine Robinson, 15; Antonio Montalvo, 18; and Orlando Escobar, 16.[8]

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.[6] Santana, McCray, and Richardson made video statements in the presence of parents.[6] Wise made several statements unaccompanied by any parent, guardian or counsel.[6] Lopez was interviewed on videotape in the presence of his parents on April 21, 1989, beginning at 3:30 a.m. He named others of the group by first names in the group attacks on other persons but denied any knowledge of the female jogger.[36] 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.[37] 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.[8]

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.[9] 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."[38]

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 deals 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.

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.[39]

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.[39] 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, who said that it originated in a police detective's misunderstanding of the suspects' use of the phrase "doing the wild thing", lyrics from rapper Tone Loc's hit song "Wild Thing".[40][41] 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 or indicted.[24] 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.[19]

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

After the major media's decisions to print the names, photos, and addresses of the juvenile suspects, they and their families received serious threats. Other residents living at the Schomburg Plaza, where four suspects lived, were also threatened. Because of this, editors of The City Sun and the Amsterdam News chose to use Meili's name in their continuing coverage of the events.[42]

Reverend Calvin O. Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, who came to support the five suspects, said to The New York Times, "The first thing you do in the United States of America when a white woman is raped is round up a bunch of black youths, and I think that's what happened here."[24]

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

On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump – at the time a real estate magnate – called for the return of the death penalty for murder in full-page advertisements published in all four of the city's major newspapers. Trump said he wanted the "criminals of every age ... to be afraid".[2][43] The advertisement, which cost an estimated US$85,000 (equivalent to $186,000 in 2021),[2][43] said, in part,

Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer ... Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. ... How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits? Criminals must be told that their Civil Liberties End When an Attack On Our Safety Begins![44]

According to a contemporaneous article in the New York Amsterdam News, the ad was "widely condemned", including by then-Mayor Koch. Colin Moore, one of the attorneys defending one of the Central Park defendants, said that the ad "proved that anything is possible in America", and that "even a fool can become a multi-millionaire."[45][46]

According to defendant Yusef Salaam, quoted in a February 2016 article in The Guardian, Trump "was the fire starter" in 1989, as "common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty."[47] Salaam said his family received death threats after papers ran Trump's full-page ad urging the death penalty.[47]

• 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.[8]
• 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.[8]

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:[8][35]

• 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,[34] Richardson,[35] and Salaam[48] 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.[35] 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,[49][50] and Kevin Richardson and Steve Lopez who lived elsewhere in the complex. They had seen each other in the neighborhood.[49] 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.[51]

• 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 4+1⁄2 years' probation.[8]
• 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.[8]

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.[61] The jury consisted of four white Americans, four black Americans, three Hispanic Americans, and one Asian American.[62] Meili testified at the trial, but her identity was not given to the court. None of the three defense attorneys cross-examined her.[8]

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.[8][63] Salaam and McCray were 15 years old, and Santana 14 years old, at the time of the crime.[8] 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.[7]

The second trial, of Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise, began October 22, 1990[64] and also lasted about two months, ending in December.[8] Kevin Richardson, 14 years old at the time of the crime, had been free on $25,000 bail before the trial.[65]

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.[65]

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.[65] They contended that the confessions had been coerced from youths vulnerable to pressure because of their age and their intellectual capacity.[64]

Meili testified again at this trial; again, her name was not given in court. This time one of the defense counsels, Wise's lawyer, cross-examined her. She later said in an interview on Oprah: "I'll tell you what—I didn't feel wonderful about the boys' defense attorneys, especially the one who cross-examined me. He was right in front of my face and, in essence, calling me a slut by asking questions like 'When's the last time you had sex with your boyfriend?'"[21] 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.[66]

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.[67] He was sentenced to 5–10 years in a juvenile facility.[8]

Korey Wise, 16 years old at the time of the crime, was acquitted of rape and attempted murder.[67] 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.[7][68] Wise was convicted of lesser charges of sexual abuse, assault, and riot in the attack on the female jogger and on Loughlin.[67] 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.[8] 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."[67]

Jurors who agreed to interviews after the trials said that they were not convinced by the youths' confessions, but were impressed by the physical evidence introduced by the prosecutors: semen, grass, dirt, and two hairs described as "consistent with" the victim's hair[7]^: 6 that were recovered from Richardson's underpants.[69]

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.[54] In total, 14 men were tested, including the defendants and Meili's former boyfriend, and all were excluded.[54] The semen belonged to another, unidentified male.[54] Years later, more advanced DNA testing also revealed that the hairs in Richardson's clothes did not match the victim.[70]

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."[47] 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."[47] In 2019 Time magazine also assessed Trump's ads in 1989 as having adversely affected the case for the defendants.[71]

In a 1991 New York Review of Books article, which was the first mainstream piece arguing that the Five's convictions had been wrongful, Joan Didion 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".[72]

In 2001, convicted serial rapist and murderer Matias Reyes was serving a life sentence 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.[77] 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.[78] 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.[78] During the summer of 1989, Reyes raped four more women, killing one, and was interrupted after robbing a fifth.[7]

In 2001 Reyes met Wise when they were held at the Auburn Correctional Facility in upstate New York.[79][80][81] That year, Reyes informed a corrections officer that he had raped Meili.[82][83][84] 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.[85][86] He also said that he had intended to burglarize the victim's apartment.[87][88] Reyes was then working at an East Harlem convenience store on Third Avenue and 102nd Street, and living in a van on the street.[86][89]

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office was notified of the confession in 2002.[90] 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.[54] Reyes provided officials with a detailed account of the attack, details of which were corroborated by other evidence which the police held. In addition, his DNA matched the DNA evidence at the scene, confirming that he was the sole source of the semen found in and on the victim "to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people".[7] Reyes' DNA matched the semen found on Meili, and he provided other confirmatory evidence.[91][92] 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.[7]

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.[7]

Reyes' confession occurred after the statute of limitations had passed and the Central Park Five had already served their sentences.[93][77][94] Reyes claimed he came forward because "it was the right thing to do".[95] 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.[7]

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.[70]

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."[7]

After an investigation into the defendants' innocence was conducted in 2002 by Robert Morgenthau, 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 for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress; 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.

Yusef Salaam in 2009, seven years after his conviction was 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.[7]

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:

A comparison of the statements reveals troubling discrepancies. ... The accounts given by the five defendants differed from one another on the specific details of virtually every major aspect of the crime—who initiated the attack, who knocked the victim down, who undressed her, who struck her, who held her, who raped her, what weapons were used in the course of the assault, and when in the sequence of events the attack took place. ... In many other respects the defendants' statements were not corroborated by, consistent with, or explanatory of objective, independent evidence. And some of what they said was simply contrary to established fact.[7]

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."[6] 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."[7] 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.[7]

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.[96] Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly complained at the time that Morgenthau's staff had denied his detectives access to "important evidence" needed to conduct a thorough investigation.[97]

Linda Fairstein, who directed the original prosecution, agreed with the decision to vacate the rape charges but said the separate assault charges should have remained.[98] 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."[99]

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.[97] All five of the defendants had completed their prison sentences at the time of Tejada's order; their names were cleared in relation to this case. This also enabled them being removed from New York State's sex offender registry. In addition to having had difficulty getting employment or renting housing, as registered offenders, they had been required to report to authorities in person every three months.[97][100] The city government also withdrew all charges against the men.[101][91] 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.[102]

Following these events, in 2002, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commissioned a panel to review the case, "To determine whether the new evidence [from the Reyes affidavit and related evidence, and Morgenthau's investigation] indicated that police supervisors or officers acted improperly or incorrectly, and to determine whether police policy or procedures needed to be changed as a result of the Central Park jogger case."[78][103] The panel was chaired by attorney Michael F. Armstrong, the former chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, which in 1972 had documented widespread corruption in the NYPD. Two other attorneys were included: Jules Martin, a former police officer and now New York University Vice President; and Stephen Hammerman, deputy police commissioner for legal affairs.[103][104][105][106][107] The panel issued a 43-page report in January 2003.[103][78]

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."[103] But it disputed acceptance of Reyes's claim that he alone had raped the jogger.[103][104] It said there was "nothing but his uncorroborated word" that he acted alone.[103] Armstrong said the panel believed "the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon."[103]

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."[103] 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."[103]

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".[103]

As to the five defendants, the report said:

We believe the inconsistencies contained in the various statements were not such as to destroy their reliability. On the other hand, there was a general consistency that ran through the defendants' descriptions of the attack on the female jogger: she was knocked down on the road, dragged into the woods, hit and molested by several defendants, sexually abused by some while others held her arms and legs, and left semiconscious in a state of undress.[103][104]

In 2003, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana Jr., and Antron McCray sued the City of New York for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress. The other two defendants later joined the lawsuit. Under Michael Bloomberg's mayoral administration,[108] the city refused to pursue a settlement for the lawsuits based on a conclusion that the defendants had had a fair trial.

Speaking at a news conference in 2002, Bloomberg spoke of his confidence regarding the actions of the police department. "As far as I can tell, the N.Y.P.D. did exactly what they should have done a number of years ago when the terrible incident took place ... If we see any reason to think that we acted inappropriately, [Police] Commissioner Kelly will certainly take appropriate measures. But so far we believe that the N.Y.P.D. did act appropriately."[109]

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:[110][111]

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

After a change in city administration, with the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio (who had run on a campaign promise to resolve the matter), the city 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.[112]

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

In 2016, the five men received an award of $3.9 million against the State of New York 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.[113][114][115][116][117][118]

Under newly elected Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City announced a settlement in June 2014 in the case for about $40 million.[119][120][121] 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.[122] The settlement averaged roughly $1 million for each year of imprisonment that each of the men had served.[123]

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, before Judge Alan Marin.[76] 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."[76] 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.[124]

Trisha Meili in 2005

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.[18][125][126] 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.[127] She continues to manifest some after-effects of the assault, including memory loss.[16][17][28][21]

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, quoted incriminatory statements allegedly made by some of the youths after they had been taken into custody by police in April 1989.[128]

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.[129][130] 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.[130] 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.[131]

Donald Trump also returned to the media, writing a 2014 opinion article for the New York Daily News. He said the settlement was "a disgrace", and that the men were likely guilty: "Settling doesn't mean innocence. ... Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels."[132] During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump again said that the Central Park Five were guilty and that their convictions should not have been vacated.[133] The men of the Central Park Five criticized Trump at the time for his statement, stating they had falsely confessed under police coercion.[134][135] 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.[136] In June 2019 Trump stated he would not apologize, saying the Central Park Five "admitted their guilt".[137][138][139]