On April 19th, 1989, a violent string of attacks occurred in Central Park in New York City.  Among those was the rape, sexual assault, and attempted murder of a woman named Trisha Meili who survived but did not remember anything of the ordeal.  6 men, Stephen Lopez (15), Raymond Santana (14), Korey Wise (16), Antron McCray (15), Kevin Richardson (14), and Yusef Salaam (15) were all brought in and questioned by police.  Because of Lopez’s charges of an assault that happened that night, he was not prosecuted for the crime against Meiji and so the group became known as the Central Park 5.  

 

During investigation, each of the defendants were interrogated and coerced into making statements and pleas that were used as a main source of evidence during court.  Wise and Salaam, who had allegedly told police he was 16 which he later denied showing a form of improper interrogation, were interrogated with exceptional force and persistence because they did not need parents to be there as they were 16 years old.  However, in each of their confessions, not a single one of them confessed to the rape of Meiji yet all of them, with the exception of Santana, stated that the rape did indeed happen.  This inconsistency as well as many others were asked to be overlooked by jurors according to the prosecution.  

 

The other base of the evidence was forensic evidence that supposedly connected the hair of the defendants to Meiji.  

 

All of the defendants were convicted and sentenced by the jury with Wise receiving the longest sentence, up to 15 years, for sexual assault of Meiji.  One year before his release, an inmate named Matias Reyes stepped forward and confessed to the crime as a whole.  His DNA matched that from the crime, his story lined up, and the cross on his ring matched the same shaped mark on her face during the attack.  This allowed the case to be reopened.  In addition to this, the hair based evidence was deemed inconclusive upon reexamination and the hair that was found was retested and did connect the defendants to the crime.  In 2002, all 5 men and Lopez were exonerated of the crimes against Meiji.

 

This case was a result of faulty forensic science, false coerced confessions from interrogation, and official misconduct.