MICHAEL F. ARMSTRONG, WSJ Persistent Myths in the Central Park Jogger Case (July 29, 2014)
Extract:
"The defendants were convicted in 1990 for participating, with 30 or 35 other 14- to 16-year-olds, in a series of attacks in Central Park on the evening of April 19, 1989. The convictions were based largely on the defendants' own statements to the police. By far the most serious of the assaults was the horrific, bloody rape and near-murder of a 29-year-old female jogger, who survived, but without any memory of what had happened. The defendants served prison sentences from six to 13 years.
"Their convictions were vacated in 2002 when Matias Reyes, an imprisoned serial rapist and killer, volunteered that he had raped the jogger, a claim confirmed by DNA tests, and that he had done it alone, a claim resting solely on his credibility.
"In the lawsuit against the city that followed, police and prosecutors honored a court request not to discuss the case publicly. The defendants—now civil plaintiffs—launched a high-powered publicity campaign that has persuaded many that they were completely innocent, that they had been coerced and fed false stories by the police, and that they have been exonerated. None of these contentions is accurate."
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