Central Park Jogger Case - "Overwhelming Evidence"

McCray, Antron AND Richardson, Kevin AND Salaam, Yusef AND Santana, Raymond AND Wise, Kharey ; sexual assault, robbery, assault; "OVERWHELMING"

Suggestibility issues

NRE:

McCray, Richardson, Salaam and Santana: false confession, false/misleading forensic evidence, perjury/false accusation, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant

Wise: false confession, false/misleading forensic evidence, perjury/false accusation, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree, withheld exculpatory evidence

N4 [94] "In 1990, [the defendants were] convicted of rape in the first degree [and other crimes] in the Central Park Jogger case based upon incriminating statements made by [the defendants] who were allegedly involved in the crimes and the presence of certain forensic evidence (hair and semen). Failure by police and prosecutors to further investigate the inconsistent and exculpatory DNA test results which failed to connect the hair and other evidence and [the defendants] to the crime. Police mishandling of forensic evidence, which may have caused the hairs to be picked up at the precinct house, rather than during the crime."

G26 [98] "In April 1989, [the defendants], ages 14 to 16, confessed to a horrific assault and rape in Manhattan's Central Park that nearly killed a 28-year-old woman jogger. All five were convicted in 1990, even though DNA from the rape did not match any of the defendants but came from a single unknown male. In 2002, an imprisoned serial rapist and murderer named Martias Reyes confessed to the police that he alone committed the crime and provided information that was consistent with the known facts. His DNA matched the crime scene DNA. After an exhaustive investigation, Manhattan [DA] Robert Morgenthau issued a detailed report concluding that Reyes was indeed the sole rapist and that the confessions of the original defendants were inconsistent, inaccurate and unreliable.

"The next year, the [NYPD] issued a detailed report criticizing Morgenthau's investigation and his report. The police concluded that there was nothing wrong with the interrogations of the defendants or with their confessions; and that, despite the fact that none of the defendants mentioned Reyes, 'most likely' all five had been his accomplices in the assault and rape."

[This was a ludicrous attempt on the part of the police to save face and avoid admitting (perhaps even to themselves) their integral role in railroading these five young men. It also calls to mind a quote from the PBS film about this case, 'The Central Park Five': "The fact is, we're just not very good people."]

[The following are all of the 'detectives' listed in the various CP5 legal decisions as having been involved in this case: Humberto Arroyo, Bruno Francisci, Carlos Gonzalez, John Hartigan, Harry Hildebrandt, Scott Jaffer, Thomas McCabe, Thomas McKenna, Robert Nugent, John O'Sullivan, Jose Rosario, Louis Rosenthal, Mario Selvaggi, Michael Sheehan, and John Taglioni. The three ADA's who prosecuted this case were: Linda Fairstein and Elizabeth Lederer, and Arthur 'Tim' Clements.

O1 "Linda Fairstein [was] the lead prosecutor in the 'Central Park Jogger' case...[After Mattias Reyes came forward and admitted that he was the sole perpetrator,] Linda Fairstein claimed that she was still certain of the original suspects' guilt; she suggested that the man whose DNA was found simly finished the attack the teenagers started. In a softball interview with Jewish Woman magazine, Fairstein explained:

'[F]our of these five men admitted over the years that they attacked others who were assaulted in Central Park that night. It's easy for me to keep a position that I believe is right, so I'm comfortable with the original convictions. Throughout my 30-year career, I've always maintained pride in my integrity. That's why the DA and my colleagues and the court trusted me all of those years.'

"Fairstein combines many aspects of denial in her statement. In addition to having postulated a phantom sixth assailant, she justified her prosecution of the Central Park Jogger case on the grounds that the young men had committed different crimes that night."

[ Some of these young men may have committed the crime of 'menacing,' a non- sexual crime akin to -- but seemingly less serious than -- (physical) assault. However, in the PBS film, one of the five indicated that the only crime he committed that night was 'jumping the turnstyles' at a subway station.]

[This is not the only wrongful conviction Fairstein had an intergral part in: see Oliver Jovanovic. ]

[Fairstein later became a writer of crime fiction. But following the PBS film, as well as Ava Duvernay's 'When They See Us' movie about these five young men, Fairstein's agent and publisher dropped her.]

[604:93] [McCray]; 1st Dept. 11/30/93; affirmed

"[T]he hearing testimony provided a reasonable basis for the court's finding that the questioning of [McCray] was not coercive..."

[And yet, the NRE lists false confession, police officer misconduct, and witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant as contributing to this wrongful conviction. ]

[590:195] [Salaam]; 1st Dept. 11/19/92; affirmed

"The testimony of the [prosecution's] witnesses was consistent and credible. The testimony offered by [Salaam's] witnesses was inconsistent or implausible.

"The evidence against [Salaam] was overwhelming.

[The 'justices' who signed onto this were Richard Kupferman, David Ross, Joseph P. Sullivan, and Richard W. Wallach. ]

[666:881] [Salaam]; N.Y. Cty. Ct. 10/30/97; Sexual Offense Registration Act (SORA) hearing

"The court is troubled by the [defense] psychiatrist's personal belief that Yusef Salaam is innocent, despite his conviction and the evidence on which the jury relied...What is of significant concern is the absence of any acceptance of responsibility by Yusef Salaam for the brutal and violent crime for which he was convicted. This convicted sex offender has not only shown no remorse regarding his crime, he continues to deny entirely his involvement in its commission..."

"Accordingly, Yusef Salaam is deemed a sexually violent predator and a risk level three designation [the worst possible] is given to such sex offender [sic]."

[This judge -- George B. Daniels -- who also presided over both trials -- seems blissfully unaware of the undeniable reality that wrongful convictions do, in fact, occur. As to Salaam not showing any remorse, given that he's innocent, that makes perfect sense. Lastly, the implication that this judge might have given Salaam a lower risk level if he had (falsely) acknowledged guilt is supremely disingenuous.]

D19 [This is part of a radio interview of Yusef Salaam, by Dave Davies.]

[5] SALAAM: "And they told us inside the interrogation room, you know, only guilty people remain silent; you can talk to us...Now, mind you, we weren't told our Miranda warnings before questioning. As a matter of fact, I'll never forget -- when they finished questioning me, they took this card, slid it across the table and told me to sign it. I didn't even read what it was that I was signing...It had writing on it. And that was what they were supposed to give me -- meaning, they were supposed to say to me, do you uderstand your rights? They were supposed to say to me, do you understand your rights? They were supposed to tell me each of these rights, and they -- yet they did not do this."

"[W]e were taken from one precinct to the next."

[6] "I remember when I was there with Korey, hearing him getting beat up in the next room. I remember hearing him yell out, OK, OK, I'll tell you. And he made, if I'm not mistaken, four completely different confessions -- four completely different ones. And the one that he implicated me in they played at my trial. All we wanted to do was go home. This was a nightmare. We were delirious with hunger."

"And I think what happens is, after a certain point, you break. And in the breaking point, you say anything that will allow you to get out of that. I remember listening to Raymond Santana's confession, his false confession...I remember hearing his false confession, and it was the most craziest thing that people believed in 1989. Here he is, being made to say, at approximately 1900 hours, me and a group of my colleagues began to walk south."

DAVIES: "Not something a teenager would ever say, right. Right, right."

SALAAM: "Right. And he looks up in the documentary, 'The Central Park Five,' and says what 14-year-old boy talks like that?"

[7] DAVIES: "[A]nd then your mom eventually showed up -- right? -- and said, you can't be talking to him."

SALAAM: "[A]nd she told me something that's very important...She said to me, stop talking to them. And then she said to me, they need you to participate in whatever it is that they're trying to do; do not participate, refuse. And for me, it was one of the most powerful learning tools that I could ever imagine...[T]hey're trying to get you to participate in your own destruction."

"In New York, one of the things that we fought for is for the whole of the custodial interrogation to be recorded, and the reason why we wanted that to be recorded is that, in the Central Park jogger case, when the jury saw this false story being presented in front of their eyes in such a pretty package -- wow, you have the prosecutor reading the Miranda warnings [on videotape], and you have these culprits agreeing, and then they tell this story.

"And mind you, the story is not factual in any way, form or fashion. The forensic scientists know this, but yet they went forward. They went forward and presented this in front of the jury...But the forensic scientists had a photograph of a drag line, and in the drag line, there could not have been a gang rape."

DAVIES: "This is where the jogger was dragged off the trail into the woods, and it's a very narrow line."

SALAAM: "It's a very narrow line showing only the assailant and the victim."

DAVIES: "Yeah. Right. And if it were a gang rape, then a lot more grass would have been trampled, right?"

[8] SALAAM: "Well, not only that, I think that had the photograph and had the description been fair, like, had we lived in a truly just society, then we would have been afforded the opportunity to have a proper defense mounted."

"We had been vilified in the media. Over [9] 400 articles were written about us within the first few weeks. And our faces were on every single front page of every newspaper in New York City for a very, very long time."

[11] DAVIES: "[T]he head of the sex crimes unit at the DA's office at the time of this prosecution in 1989, Linda Fairstein, has sued Netflix and the producers of 'When They See Us' claming that the depiction of her was inaccurate and defamatory."

[12] SALAAM: "The overwhelming feeling that I have towards the police and prosecutors is that they knew that we had not done this crime. They knew it, but they chose to move forward. They built their careers off our backs. And the law of karma caught up to them...No one wants to be in a situation where the people at te highest level in life are the ones who are the most criminal."

Commentary/application to the Nickel case:

'And they told us...inside the interrogation room...only guilty people remain silent; you can talk to us.' Anyone who continues to peddle this sort of pabulum is either ignorant, or lying. Over and over again, innocent persons who have spoken forthrightly to the police have had it used against them.

'We weren't told our Miranda warnings before questioning.' Neither was Nickel -- at any time.

'They were supposed to say to me, do you understand your rights? They were supposed to tell me each of these rights -- yet they did not do this.' Same with Nickel.

'[W]e were taken from one precinct to the next.' This was done so that family and lawyers would have a much harder time finding and getting to them.

'I remember when I was there with Korey, hearing him get beat up in the next room.' Actually being physically assaulted by detectives in the interrogation room may not be as common as it was many decades ago; but it does still happen.

'After a certain point, you break...You say anything that will allow you to get out of that.' Much like the nonsense about innocent people having nothing to fear speaking to the police, anyone who still claims that people do not confess to things they did not do is either ignorant or lying. See the numerous times in this section where 'false confession' is listed as a factor contributing to a wrongful conviction.

'I remember listening to Raymond Santana's confession, his false confession...I remember hearing his false confession at trial, and it was the most craziest thing that people believed in 1989. Here he is, being made to say, at approximately 1900 hours, me and a group of my colleagues began to walk south...[W]hat 14-year-old boy talks like that?' Likewise, in Nickel's purported statement, Detective Mark DeFrancesco has him using phrases that virtually no one -- except a policeman -- would ever say. (See Day Two of annotated trial transcrpt.

'She [my mom] told me something that's very important...She said to me, stop talking to them. And then she said to me, they need you to participate in whatever it is that they're trying to do; do not participate, refuse. And for me, it was one of the most powerful learning tools that I could ever imagine...[T]hey're trying to get you to participate in your own destruction.' This is always the case in police interrogations, whether the suspect is innocent or not.

'In New York, one of the things that we fought for is for the whole of the custodial interrogation to be recorded.' None of Nickel's was. See Videotaped Interviews section of the present site.

'When the jury saw this false story being presented in front of their eyes in such a pretty package -- wow, you have the prosecutor reading the Miranda warnings [on videotape], and you have these culprits agreeing, and then they tell this story. And mind you, the story is not factual in any way, form or fashion. The forensic scientists knew this, but yet they went forward. They went forward and presented this in front of a jury...But the forensic scientists had a photograph of a drag line, and in the drag line, there could not have been a gang rape...It's a very narrow line showing only the [one] assailant and the victim.' Analogously, in the Nickel case, if Detectives Mark DeFrancesco and Ronald Bates, as well as Prosecutors Peter torncello, Veronica Dumas, and Paul DerOhannessian truly did not know that the sex photo could not possibly have depicted 'Arthur,' then they were grossly incompetent (and blind). Not only did the eye colors not match -- neither did the photo background, which clearly was not Nickel's bedroom -- where 'Arthur' claimed the oral sex happened. They too knew all of this, and yet, went ahead anyway.

'Had we lived in a truly just society, then we would have been afforded the opportunity to have a proper defense mounted." Likewise, Judge Paul Czajka precluded a photography expert from presenting his conclusion that Nickel was not the older person depicted in the sex photo, an issue that was absolutely crucial to the entire defense.

'We had been vilified by the media.' This was certainly true of Nickel as well.

(Davies) 'The head of the sex crimes unit at the DA's office at the time of this prosecution in 1989, Linda Fairstein, had sued Netflix and the producers of "When They See Us" claiming that the depiction of her was inaccurate and defamatory.' What else coud Fairstein have done? Her publishing career was over, and her reputation had been shredded long before Netflix ever started filming. This lawsuit is a 'Hail Mary' pass that will go down in flames.

(Salaam) 'The overwheming feeling that I have towards the police and prosecutors is they knew we had not done this crime. They knew it, yet they chose to move forward. They built their careers off our backs.' The police and prosecutors in Nickel's case almost certainly also knew damn well that Nickel had not comitted the three most serious offenses he was charged with: oral sex, photographing the latter, and digital penetration. But because they didn't like Nickel, and likely would have suffered great embarrassent had they simply dropped those charges, they went ahead anyway. Moreover, Detective Mark DeFrancesco also appears to have 'built his career off of Nickel's back, in that, sometime after his interrogation of Nickel but before the latter's trial, DeFrancesco was promoted from 'Investigator' to 'Inspector.' (And Prosecutor Peter Torncello listed his 'successful' conviction of Nickel on his resume.)

'No one wants to be in a situation where the people at the highest level...are the ones who are the most criminal.'

"'Unequal Verdicts: The Central Park Jogger Trials'; by Timothy Sullivan. Simon & Schuster, New York, N.Y.; $23, The Lawyer's Bookshelf, reviewed by James D. Zirinis, New York Law Journal, 8/31/92.

"At least six of the gang [of about 30] beat her senseless, serially raped her and left her for dead."

[In fact, just one person did this -- Mattias Reyes -- who did not even know the five young men who were on trial for these crimes.]

"For the 40 or so hours following the crime, Ms. [Elizabeth] Lederer, and her co-counsel, Arthur Tim Clements, conducted a professional investigation of the facts in the case...And the record showed scrupulous adherence to...Miranda...as well as state legal requirements relative to the interrogation of juveniles."

[Really?! According to the NRE, we have, among other things, false confession, false or misleading forensic evidence, perjury/false accusation, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant, and withholding evidence. There can scarcely be said to have been a 'professional investigation' given that all five being prosecuted were innocent, and no one in 'law enforcement' bothered to check the DNA found at the scene against other rape cases. As for 'scrupulous adherence to Miranda and state requirements relative to the interrogation of juveniles, according to the NRE, there was police officer misconduct and misconduct in interrogation of exoneree. Moreover, according to Yusef Salaam, none of them were provided Miranda warnings prior to questioning, and, he could hear Kharey Wise being beaten up by 'detectives' in the next room. And last but not least, the five were moved from precinct to precinct, in an obvious effort to prevent these minors from having their parents present during interrogation -- which was their legal right.]

"Mr. Sullivan's gripping account of the Central Park jogger trials is reportage at its best."

[Oh? One might have thought that 'reportage at its best' involved a bit more than simply acting as stenographer for the prosecution.]

"Cross-examination buffs will be dazzled by Ms. Lederer's no-nonsense artistry as she probes the false testimony of hostile witnesses with sharp questions demanding yes or no answers. Cross-examining the father of defendant Antron McCray, who claimed his son's videtaped confession had been coerced, Ms. Lederer destroyed the witness with a deft series of tough questions."

[In fact, these so-called 'hostile witnesses' were -- in sharp contrast to many prosecution witnesses -- the ones actually telling the truth. If Ms. Lederer really did 'destroy' these witnesses, she did so in the service of a lie , scarcely a laudable act.]

"This book tells it all and tells it like it is." [Not quite.] "[T]he attackers, in their confessions, supplied details about the victims (some of whom had not yet been identified by police) that only the guilty would know."

[According to Yusef Salaam, Kharey Wise "made...four completely different confessions." Salaam also says: I remember listening to Raymond Santana's confession, his false confession...and it was the craziest thing that people believed in 1989. Here he is, being made to say, at approximately 1900 hours, me and a group of my colleagues began to walk south." Then: "The forensic scientists had a photograoh of a drag line, and in the drag line, there could not have been a gang rape." The details 'provided' by the five were supplied by 'law enforcement,' or were dead wrong , or both. Over and over again, in wrongful conviction cases, we encounter the canard that 'the defendant provided information that only the guilty could know.' And then it turns out, the police fed it to them.]

"We learn of the outrageous exploitation of the case to inflame the passions of the moment by so-called activists[, including] Al Sharpton and C. Vernon Mason."

[So, it was those on the defense side who were guilty of 'the outrageous exploitation of the moment'? These folks were largely telling the truth, whereas the prosecution side was spinning a complete fable. Prosecutor Linda Fairstein, in particular, used the media to help brand these five innocent young men as monsters -- and then used this most prominent case -- itself a near-total fiction -- to fashion a crime novel career.]

"William Kunstler, who represented defendant Salaam on appeal, was held in contempt for telling Judge [Thomas B.] Galligan that he was a disgrace to the bench." [In addition to presiding over both trials, Galligan ruled that all of the confessions were voluntary.]

[Given that Galligan ruled these coerced confessions 'voluntary,' and presided over the two trials that convicted these five young men, Kunstler's charge would appear to be accurate. (More about Kunstler below.)]

"The book bears witness to the triumph of our criminal justice system."

[Laughable indeed.]

[571:930]; Kunstler v. Galligan; 1st Dept. 6/18/91; appeal from contempt ruling; affirmed

"[I]n November 1990...Kunstler...moved to vacate Mr. Salaam's conviction, on the ground that, during his trial, a juror read press accounts of the trial and informed his fellow jurors. Further, Mr. Kunstler [request that] Galligan...recuse himself from considering the motion."

"Justice Galligan promptly informed Mr. Kunstler that the motion was denied, [and] no hearing would be directed..."

"This colloquy then took place:

MR. KUNSTLER: It is outrageous. You will not have an evidentiary hearing despite all the law that calls for it?

THE COURT [Galligan]: I will not hear oral argument. Call the next case.

MR. KUNSTLER: You have exhibited what your partisanship is. You shouldn't be sitting in court. You are a disgrace to the bench.

THE COURT: I hold you in contempt of court.

"Weaknesses in Central Park Jogger Case Were Clear All Along," Eric A. Seiff, New York Law Journal, 7/30/18.

"Warnings of the prosecution's infirmity were there from the very beginning: the 'correcting' of a so-called 'confession' after an all-night interrogation, the continuation of the sexual assaults in the same community that preceeded and succeeded the arrest of the teenagers; the DNA report that placed not one of the youngsters at the crime scene; and the prosecutor's surreptitious adjustment of the timing of the events between the trial of the first group of defendants and the second."

"Nor should it be forgotten that numerous other victims in the community were left vulnerable because of the close-minded, slipshod rush to judgment against the wrong defendants."

NRE synopsis (by Ken Otterbourg):

"On the night of April 19, 1989, a series of violent incidents occurred in New York City's Central Park. At around 9 p.m., several teenagers accosted a bike rider. A few minutes later, a man was robbed and assaulted. A taxi driver said several teenagers threw rocks at his car. Around 9:30, four male joggers were attacked at the northern end of the path that runs around the Central Park Reservoir. One of those men, a 40-year-old teacher named John Loughlin, was knocked to the ground, kicked, hit with a pipe, and robbed of his Walkman. Loughlin briefly lost consciousness. When he came to, he called the police. They had already received reports of the chaotic events in the park.

"Around 10 p.m., two plainclothes officers in an umarked van were near an entrance to the park on Central Park West and 102nd Street and saw a group of Black and Hispanic teenage boys. As the officers approached, most of the group ran, but the officers arrested 15-year-old Steven Lopez and 14-year-old Raymond Santana, charging them with unlawful assembly and taking them to the Central Park Precinct.

"Around the same time, officers arrested Kevin Richardson, who was also 14 years old, and several other teenagers. They were also brought to the Central Park Precinct, which is on 86th Street at the south end of the reservoir. The teenagers spent the night in the precinct's holding cell.

"At around 1:30 a.m. on April 20, two men walking in the park found an unconscious woman in the woods near the 102nd Street traverse road. The woman, who was near death, had been bound with her T-shirt, beaten and raped. She would not remember anything about the attack."

"On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump, then a real estate deveoper in the city, took out full-page ads in New York's major newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty. He wrote in part: 'Mayor [Ed] 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.' Salaam would later say that his family received death threats after the ad ran."

"Police found semen on one of [Patricia] Meili's [the jogger's] socks. It was compared against DNA samples of the defendants and of material taken from a cervical swab of the victim. Prior to trial, the defendants were excluded as contributors, but the genetic material on the swab and sock appeared to have come from the same source.

"In addition, anpubic hair found on the sock was examined under microscope and found to be nconsistent with the defendants and any other persons whom the defendants mentioned in their statements..

"The police also examined the clothing of the defendants. They found nine hairs on Richardson's clothes. A forensic scientist said three of those hairs were consistent with Meili's hair. Twelve hairs were found on Lopez's clothes. One was said to be consistent with Meili."

"Wise [said] that the police had slapped him and threatened him while in custody."

"At the [first] trial, a series of witnesses described being attacked or harassed by Black and Hispanic teenagers in the park on April 9, 1989. None identified the defendants."

"Several of the teenagers had said the woman was hit with a brick, but no evidence supported this statement."

"In 2001, Wise was at Auburn Correctional Facility in upstate New York, when he met an inmate named Matias Reyes. Reyes would later tell investigators that he realized that Wise was in prison for the attack on the Central Park jogger. In early 2002, Reyes told a prison official that he alone had sexually assaulted Meili. He was interviewed by a corrections supervisor, and then his information was forwarded to the [Manhattan DA's] Office."

"On December 5, 2002, [DA] Robert Morgenthau moved to vacate the convictions and dismiss all the charges. The motion said the new evidence supported a theory that Reyes -- and Reyes alone -- sexually assaulted Meili>"

"The statements made by the defendants, the motion said, didn't line up, and they were often lacking in detail or contradicted by the forensic evidence in the case... [T]he DNA of only one person was found. That required the jury to believe that, in a gang of teenaged rapists, only one ejaculated.'"

"After their exonerations, the five men filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the City of New York, the [NYPD], and the [Manhattan DA's] Office. In September 2014, a U.S. District Court judge approved a settlement, paying the five men just under $41 million. McCray, Richardson, Salaam, and Santana each received $7.125 million; Wise received $12.25 million. They also shared $3.9 million in state compensation."

[All emphases original unless otherwise noted.]