NYC Releases Thousands of Documents on the Central Park 5 Case, Prosecutor In Case Says the Five Weren't 'Deserving' of Settlement

NYC Releases Thousands of Documents on the Central Park 5 Case, Prosecutor In Case Says the Five Weren't 'Deserving' of Settlement

On Thursday night New York City released several documents, recordings and other materials detailing the notorious Central Five case.

The story of the Central Park Five should be a stranger to no one. It was only decades after their initial conviction that defendants Kharey Wise, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam had their convictions overturned in 2002 after another inmate, Matias Reyes, confessed — supported by DNA evidence — that he raped then-28-year-old jogger Trisha Meili.

In 2014, the five reached a settlement with New York City and were awarded $41 million.

However, there are those who have long who argued that the defendants were not just randomly rounded up and arrested after Mieli’s attack, but in fact were part of a group known for attacking and harassing people in the park, whether they be joggers, walkers, or people relaxing on benches.

“These documents and videos will certainly challenge the prevailing narrative that completely omitted more than 50% of the evidence in this case,” former prosecutor Linda Fairstein told the New York Daily News. “These young men were arrested as a result of a meticulous police investigation, and there’s no doubt that they were, as charged, rioting and attacking people in the park.”

Tim Clements, the co-prosecutor for the district attorney’s office in both of the Five trials in 1990 and 1991 told the Daily News in a separate interview that he didn’t think that the five were “deserving” of any settlement, believing that the city could have won the civil case at trial.

“The facts are the facts. It’s unconscionable to me that anyone thinks they were not in the park that night and were not causing mayhem,” he added.

Despite Reyes’ confessions that he acted alone in Meili’s attack, Clements remained skeptical.

“We knew at the time that the two cases were tried that someone else was not apprehended,” he said. “We told the jury that the DNA that had been analyzed matched someone else. When Reyes came forward it was a relief…It’s not surprising that he [perhaps] was with this group or joined it later.”