Convictions challenged

last updated 8 January 2015

New York

Manhattan’s district attorney this week asked a judge to clear the names of five men convicted in the 1989 “Central Park jogger” rape case. A murderer and serial rapist named Matias Reyes came forward this year and said he alone raped the jogger, beat her with a rock, and left her in a coma. Reyes’ DNA matched semen found on her sock, and prosecutors said they found no reason to question his account. Detectives angrily said the new evidence didn’t explain why the five suspects, then teenagers, confessed, graphically describing a violent “wilding” rampage through the park. They served up to 13 years in prison. Through it all, they maintained the confessions were coerced, said Angela Cuffee, the sister of one of the five. “The truth has finally come out.”