The Central Park Five are Anton McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise. They were all sixteen or younger when they were rounded up, along with seven other Black and brown boys, on suspicions of committing various crimes in Central Park on the night of April 19, 1989. One of those crimes was the brutal beating and rape of Trisha Meili, the “Central Park Jogger.” Under the lead of Linda Fairstein, who was head of the Manhattan District Attorney’s “sex-crimes” unit, the boys were questioned for hours, without an attorney or their parents present.
Eventually, all five boys “confessed” to some aspect of the crime against Meili. They were convicted and sent to prison. In 1989, then real estate developer Donald Trump took out a full-page ad in four New York newspapers, demanding that New York State reinstitute the death penalthy, in response to the attack on Meili.
We know know that the boys were wrongly accused, and that their confessions were entirely fabricated. We know that because in 2002, serial rapist Matias Reyes was captured and confessed to the attack on Meili after he met Korey Wise in prison. This is why they’re now called the Exonerated Five.
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