Central Park jogger rape case under reinvestigation
Daze doesn't usually cover sex crimes, but this case warrants attention. Manhattan prosecutors are reinvestigating the infamous Central Park jogger rape case from 1989. Five black and hispanic teenagers were convicted of the crime after a highly publicized, racially polarized trial, but another man serving life in prison confessed to the crime earlier this year. An anonymous source told the New York Times "that the DNA tests proved beyond question that the convict, Matias Reyes, 31, had raped the jogger, who was found battered and near death on the night of April 19, 1989, when bands of marauding youths attacked nine people at random in the park. But the official said that the proof of Mr. Reyes's involvement did not necessarily have a bearing on the convictions of five young black and Hispanic men who were found guilty in 1990 of attacking the 28-year-old white investment banker, largely on the basis of their own graphic, detailed confessions. . . . In recent days, lawyers for three of the five youths convicted in the case have contended that Mr. Reyes's confession — and especially his claim to have acted alone — proved that their clients had been wrongfully convicted. They insisted that the youths' confessions had been coerced, and noted that no DNA or other conclusive forensic evidence against them had ever been produced." More.
