Audio:
Building Bridges, National Edition
Produced by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash
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The Central Park Five, Exonerated But Justice Still Denied!
with
Yusef Salaam, exoneree
Sharonne Salaam, parent
Roger Wareham, attorney
A long-delayed $250 million NYC civil suit finally goes to trial this year â
putting the reputations of some of the cityâs most powerful on the line.
After 22 years the then teens, Kharey Wise, Kevin Richardson,
Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana, are no longer
convicted felons or registered sex offenders, but theyâre still best known
as the Central Park 5. Each served from 7 to 13 years in prison for a rape
they didnât commit, after Mayor Koch, the police, prosecutors and the
media, along with mogul Donald Trump, who actively advocated for the
death penalty for the youth, whipped the city into a racist lynch mob. Now,
22 years and counting, after five convictions, and then one shocking
confession that upended the lives of all involved the Central Park jogger
case is about to break open again â pitting the cityâs most powerful
crime fighters against each other and the teens they wrongly jailed for
the attack, who still await justice.