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Friday, December 20, 2002

By Samuel Maull, The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- A courtroom erupted in cheers yesterday as a judge threw out the convictions of five men in the 1989 rape of a Central Park jogger -- a racially charged case that made New York look like a city on the verge of civil breakdown.

The defendants are likely to return to court with lawsuits against the city over the years they lost behind bars after the "wilding" attack on the jogger, an Upper St. Clair native, which shook New Yorkers with its randomness and brutality.

"This is the first stage. Make no mistake about it," said Michael Warren, a lawyer for three of the men.

Acting at prosecutors' request, state Justice Charles Tejada, in a five-minute hearing, undid the convictions of a dozen years ago. The ruling, just days before Christmas, came nearly three weeks earlier than planned and was made over the objections of the police detectives union.

The district attorney's office had asked the judge on Dec. 5 to set aside the convictions after a rapist behind bars, Matias Reyes, confessed to the crime and was connected to the attack by DNA on the woman's sock.

Tejada agreed that the outcome of the trial probably would have been different if the evidence had been available back then. He said the law "recognizes that trials are human endeavors and that there are times when evidence is not discovered in time to be presented to a jury."

The five black and Hispanic defendants from Harlem were 14 to 16 when they were arrested in the rape and near-fatal beating of a white investment banker jogging in the park. All five have already completed their sentences -- the longest, 11 1/2 years -- and they are in their late 20s and their 30s.

Sharonne Salaam, whose son Yusef spent 6 1/2 years in prison, said: "Nobody can give back the time he spent behind bars."

Reyes, 31, is already serving a life sentence on his other convictions. He cannot be prosecuted in the jogger case because the statute of limitations has run out.

The attack came at a time when crime in New York was soaring and racial tensions were running high, in part because of episodes such as Bernhard Goetz's shooting of black youths on the subway. The crime exposed the depth of the city's racial divide to the rest of the country. To some, it seemed as if New York was descending into anarchy.

Defense attorney Roger Wareham said yesterday the arrests and convictions of the five resulted from "a political crusade against them in defense of white womanhood. They were a victim of that mentality."

All five -- Salaam, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson and Kharey Wise -- confessed to the crime, and those statements proved devastating at trial. But their supporters said the confessions were coerced by police.

In asking that the convictions be set aside, the district attorney's office said the confessions were riddled with inconsistencies, and new forensic tests showed no physical evidence tied any of the five to the crime. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau stopped short of declaring the men innocent, but said there was no point in retrying them.

The recriminations were evident yesterday.

City Councilman Bill Perkins called for further investigation to determine who was responsible for "this miscarriage of justice."

The families and their attorneys promised lawsuits, City Council hearings and a push to hold individual detectives and prosecutors accountable.

In his first detailed comments on the case, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the decision to vacate the men's convictions did not disprove their involvement in the attack.

"The judge's ruling today has neither exonerated the defendants, nor found any collusion or coercion on the part of the police," Kelly said.

The five were also convicted variously on assault, robbery, sex abuse and riot charges stemming from allegations they attacked and mugged other people in a "wilding" spree that night. All of those charges were dismissed, too.

The jogger was left for dead in a puddle of mud and blood. Bruised from head to toe and stripped nearly naked, she had lost some 75 percent of her blood. After 12 days in a coma, she made a remarkable recovery, but had no memory of the attack and could not identify her assailant.

The woman, now 41, lives in a Connecticut suburb and works for a nonprofit organization. She has been married for five years and has written a book due out in April in which she will reveal her identity. Through a spokeswoman, the victim declined comment yesterday.

The defendants have also moved on. McCray is now a factory worker, married with three children. Richardson, a night watchman, is pursuing a college degree. Salaam is studying computer science. Wise, who served the longest term, got out of prison in August.

Santana remains in jail on a 1999 drug conviction, but the ruling could clear the way for his release, because he was sentenced as a repeat felon on the basis of his conviction in the jogger case. A review of his case is set for Monday.