Debate Highlight: Trump’s Orchestration of the Racist Lynching of the Innocent ‘Central Park 5’

Nearly three decades before the rambunctious billionaire began his run for president – before he called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, for the expulsion of all undocumented migrants, before he branded Mexicans as “rapists” and was accused of mocking the disabled – Trump called for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York following a horrific rape case in which five teenagers were wrongly convicted.

The miscarriage of justice is widely remembered as a definitive moment in New York’s fractured race relations. But Trump’s intervention – he signed full-page newspaper advertisements implicitly calling for the boys to die – has been gradually overlooked as his chances of winning the Republican nomination have rapidly increased. Now those involved in the case of the so-called Central Park Five and its aftermath say Trump’s rhetoric served as an unlikely precursor to a unique brand of divisive populism that has powered his rise to political prominence in 2016.

It was 1989. The crack epidemic had torn through New York as poverty soared to 25% and the city’s elites reaped the rewards of a booming Wall Street. The murder rate had risen to 1,896 killings a year; 3,254 rapes would be reported in the five boroughs, but only one captured the city’s extended attention and later exposed bias in its criminal justice system and media establishment.  read more… https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york

From Oxygen:

“It is impossible to determine the extent to which Trump’s influence may have impacted the jury at the time. Michael Warren, the veteran New York civil rights lawyer who represented the Central Park Five in court, argued that his clout indubitably effected the jury.

“He poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim,” Warren told The Guardian in 2016. “Notwithstanding the jurors’ assertions that they could be fair and impartial, some of them or their families, who naturally have influence, had to be affected by the inflammatory rhetoric in the ads.”

In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and serial rapist who had been serving a minimum 33-year prison sentence on unrelated charges, confessed to the attack on Meili. His DNA matched with samples from the crime scene. However, he was never tried: The statute of limitations on the case had expired.

That same year, then-Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recommended that the charges brought against the original group of accused teens be dropped. The original indictments were ultimately dismissed and the men were freed, despite protests from local police forces.

In 2014, after the Central Park Five won more than $40 million in a settlement with New York City, Trump continued to denigrate the exonerated individuals.”