The victims of a great miscarriage of justice, now recovering adults
[New York]
On Tuesday, February 4th at 11:30 on the City Hall steps, newly elected Councilmember Inez Barron will hold a press conference in support of the city-wide demand for a rapid settlement of the Central Park 5 (CP5) case.
With Federal Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis having stayed litigation on the case for 30 days, Councilmember Barron says, “This press conference is an opportunity for elected officials to let the Mayor know that we take very seriously his oft-reiterated promise to end this 25 year old tragedy and travesty of justice as quickly as possible.”
Members of the Central Park 5, their attorneys as well as long-term supporters, such as State Senator Bill Perkins, former Councilmember Charles Barron, former Comptroller John Liu, the December 12th Movement and the Freedom Party, will be there.
In 1989, five Black teenagers –one of Latino descent– from Harlem were wrongly convicted of raping Trisha Meili, a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. They served their sentences fully.
The convictions were vacated in 2002 when Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist and murderer serving a life sentence for other crimes, confessed to committing the crime alone and DNA evidence confirmed his involvement in the rape.
At the time of the trials tabloids such as The Daily News and The New York Post referred to the youths as a “wolfpack” that had been “wilding.”
