Judge Approves Central Park Five's $41M Wrongful Conviction Settlement

By Guardian UK

06 September 14

US federal judge signs off on New York City deal for men jailed over brutal rape and beating of female jogger in 1989

US federal judge has approved New York City's $41m (£25m) settlement with five men who were wrongfully convicted in the brutal rape and beating of a Central Park jogger in 1989.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the settlement was an act of justice that was long overdue.

The five black and Hispanic defendants were convicted as teenagers in the attack on a white woman. They served six to 13 years in prison before their convictions were thrown out in 2002 because of evidence connecting someone else to the attack.

Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old investment banker, was found with more than 75% of her blood drained from her body and her skull smashed. She was in a coma for 12 days, suffered permanent damage and remembers nothing about the attack.

The settlement's details had been previously reported but were disclosed publicly for the first time on Friday when magistrate judge Ronald Ellis in New York signed off on the deal.

The attackwas cited at the time as evidence that the city's crime rate had spiralled out of control.

The five men were arrested soon after the assault and confessed after lengthy interrogations but later recanted, claiming their admissions were the result of exhaustion and police coercion. They were eventually exonerated after Matias Reyes, a serial rapist and murderer, confessed in 2002; DNA testing linked him to the scene.

Korey Wise, who at 16 was the oldest at the time of the attack, served 13 years and will receive $12.25m. The other four – Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam – will be paid $7.125m each, roughly $1m for each year of imprisonment.

The settlement appears to be the largest in a wrongful conviction case in the city's history and is in line with some of the biggest recent jury verdicts in such cases, suggesting the city did not receive a significant discount by settling.

But a deal seemed a foregone conclusion after De Blasio was elected last year, after a campaign in which he vowed to end the litigation. His predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, had fought the lawsuit.

The city did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement. The city's top lawyer, Zachary Carter, said in a statement that a review of the record suggested the detectives and prosecutors who handled the original investigation "acted reasonably, given the circumstances".

In an email, Wise's lawyer, Jane Fisher-Byrialsen, said her client hoped to work with charities that helped former inmates.

The agreement is one of several major civil rights settlements under De Blasio.

In February, the city agreed to pay David Ranta $6.4m for his wrongful conviction for murdering a rabbi in 1990, while Jabbar Collins, erroneously convicted in the 1994 killing of another rabbi, will get $10m under a deal reached last month. In July, the city agreed to pay $2.75m to settle claims that a Rikers Island jail inmate died in 2012 after guards beat him.