One Night in Central Park l 20/20 l PART 7 | ABC News

after ten days of deliberations the verdict Yusef Salaam Raymond Santana and Antron McCray all 16 were convicted of the rape and assault to the South Park jogger Law & Order in the nation's largest cities seemed to get a boost tonight as the first three use to be tried in the Central Park jogger case were found guilty of gang rape and brutal assault and robbery the emotional trial underscored ugly racial tensions in the city some demonstrators claiming the defendants were arrested just because they were black in the climate of New York City at that point in time there was no surprise about the verdict inspector I thought after the first trial we used to salaam another two that maybe in the second trial they would say well we got three this would be careful but you always try to hope against hope [Music] the two defendants in the second trial were Kevin Richardson and Korey wise what's he all saying if it ain't broke don't fix it they use these confessions with effectiveness in the first trial and the strategy was if it worked once he'll work again play the tapes and let the jurors judge for themselves tape was fertile in fact it was so graphic some of the jurors at least a couple of them looked like they're having a hard time watching it it was the confessions that were on tape that were the heart of everything the prosecutor kept going back to that emphasizing that constantly hammered into US legal scholars have referred to confession evidence as the gold standard the king of evidence the sight and sound of an individual incriminating himself is as powerful as it gets in 1990 it was hard to believe that the police would actually curse children into making false confessions I don't think any of us could completely grasp that idea at that point in time the pre podcast documentary mode pre Netflix people didn't know about false confessions but the system knew about false confessions in the second trial the jury struggled with Cory wises confessions there were two statements they were all over the place the facts were contradictory self contradicted in a sense and ironically Cory Weiss's lack of consistency ended up working in his favor at the trial because the jury wondered was it just all to my son they took advantage of my whole little innocent baby took advantage of all away now the jury will saw confession tape of Cory wise in its entirety tonight and they're upstairs working deliberating right now and it looks like they're gonna make this night a late one I didn't believe that he had anything to do with the rape Cory wisest confession didn't make any sense compared to anything else it just it just didn't line up several the jurors kept at me and at me they pushed me to go to the other direction and I wish to God I had just hung the jury on that and and that's that's been my biggest regret for 30 years tonight two young men charged in that infamous attack faced the prospect of spending several years of their young lives behind bars the courtroom was hushed the judge warned the spectators to be quiet then the jury foreman read the verdicts Terry wise found guilty of sexual abuse first degree assault and riot then with respect to Kevin Richardson guilty on every charge the trial was very intense Elizabeth letterer to her credit did a phenomenal job of putting the case together it was like the worst day of our lives so it was like somebody just stabbing you in our and the haunting image that I will never forget is of my brother looking at us crying we were in shock then outside the family of Kevin Richardson aimed their grief at the press one man with a family picked up a piece of concrete and looked like he was going to throw it we like to believe that New York City's a gorgeous mosaic trials like this reflect the fact that there's a deep crack in that mosaic especially as it relates to young black man McCray Richardson Santana Salaam they all get five to ten and they go away as juveniles one of them Cory Weiss is sentenced to five to 15 as an adult even when admitting their guilt and expressing remorse might have actually given them a shot at being paroled sooner none of them would I was imprisoned for a crime that I didn't commit it was just really the like despair you know you don't have your family around you you want your family you want to see your family and your loved ones you want to see your friends I saw a life standing still and the reason I say that is when you put someone in prison the world outside moves forward people have gotten older people have moved on some died you know things have changed but they don't hardly go anywhere then five years after the trials are over the teenagers are in prison there's a milestone involving Tricia mealy in the fall of 1995 I ran the New York City Marathon [Music] I felt so proud of the hard work that had got me there because it was hard I mean I worked hard and in that moment I realized or I felt that I had reclaimed my Park and it was so exhilarating a couple years after Tricia miele runs the marathon again the teenagers who had been convicted start to come out of prison they're in their 20s and so ultimately the four men who had been 14 and 15 at the time were conditionally released based on time off for good behavior after about seven or eight years I'm so bitter I got so much again you know let the type person turn the cheek I move we lost our lives we grew up in a system you know I used to tell my brother because you know what you did God knows what you did so it doesn't matter what any man has to say you keep your head up high people were outraged with a verdict we found many people blame the media the media fell down on its job I had put together a sample of 251 articles representative of the coverage 12 articles not 12 percent 12 articles in that sample use the term alleged if there's a fault some who covered the Central Park jogger story it maybe I wasn't skeptical enough we're live at supreme court in lower Manhattan maybe we were too willing to accept a result that provided peace when a better job in journalism is digging and digging and digging until you get to the bottom of the trough it turned out that's where Mattias Reyes [Music]

Channel: ABC News

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Keywords: when they see us, central park 5, central park five, documentary, true story, true crime, central park jogge, case, trial, today, 2019, what happened, 30 years ago, woman attacked, teens, arrested, scapegoat, black teens, Harlem, white woman, ABC News, 2020, 2020 episodes, full, central park five documentary full movie, netflix, interview confession tapes, Korey Wise, Trisha Meili, assault, racial divide, economic divide, new york, Victoria Bryers, central park five confession

Id: SFhw4uS-4uY

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2019