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Prosecutor decision near on Central Park jogger case
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Manhattan prosecutors are expected to announce Thursday whether they will overturn the convictions of five men for the 1989 rape and beating of a Central Park jogger. Investigators have been debating whether to reverse the convictions after a man jailed for another rape, Matias Reyes, confessed earlier this year that he alone beat and raped the Central Park jogger. DNA evidence supports Reyes' confession. The re-examination of the case and anticipated decision by the district attorney's office comes amid continuing questions about police and prosecutors' tactics during the investigation of the case. Attorneys for the five -- Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam -- say their confessions were coerced. All five have served their sentences but claim through attorneys that they want their names cleared. "The rape and assault of the jogger in 1989 was a horrible crime," defense co-counsel Roger Wareham told CNN. "The prosecution and conviction of our clients for a crime they did not commit was the next one. We hope the DA will not participate in a third." According to Bob Cleary, the former lead prosecutor in the Unabomber case, the issue boils down to a central question: Were the suspects' statements made voluntarily? "None of us really knows what happened during the course of the interrogations," said Cleary, currently a partner at the New York City law firm of Proskauer and Rose. (Key questions) Prosecutors and police officials met at the beginning of this week for more than two hours behind closed doors to review the case. Prosecutors are considering tossing out their convictions for other crimes that night. The other convictions may not legally stand if investigators determine the teens did not rape and beat the jogger. The teenagers were prosecuted in the rape of the jogger and assaults on eight other people on the night of April 19, 1989. Prosecutors have said the teenagers were among several dozen youths who attacked people in the park that night. Four of the teenagers, in videotaped statements after their arrests, said they witnessed at least one assault. But those confessions may no longer be valid if prosecutors decide the teenagers gave inaccurate statements about the rape. Reyes' credibility questionedReyes asserts that the defendants, now men in their 20s, had no role in the assault on the jogger.
While certain Reyes was involved, authorities have not ruled out the possibility that he was a sixth assailant, or that he and the five youths struck separately. Police officials reviewing the case have raised doubts about Reyes' credibility In an interview with CNN, however, Reyes' attorney said his confession is credible. I think he's telling the truth," said Richard Siracusa. "Based upon those statements, what he's saying now makes more sense to me than the statements of the four young men who gave the confessions to this. "The stalking, the way he described it could only be described by the person who actually did it." Sharp opinions on both sidesThe case has sparked strong emotions from all sides of the case. The brutality of the attack made national headlines, and the investigation stoked racial tension in New York City. The victim was a 28-year-old white woman, and all five convicts were black. "Our children have paid a heavy price and so have our families," Sharonne Salaam, mother of Yusef Salaam, told CNN. "We are still paying the cause as we seek justice today." A key prosecutor in the case, however, recently said she has no doubt the five youths convicted in the case participated in the attack -- despite another man's recent confession. "I don't think there's a question in the minds of anyone present during the interrogation process that these five men were participants ... in the attack on the jogger," former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein told The New Yorker magazine earlier this month. Fairstein left the Manhattan district attorney's office in February after 30 years. She was chief of the sex-crimes unit at the time of the attack. Fairstein told the magazine she believes Reyes finished the attack. But she said she stands ready to testify to the convictions of the five men. A spokeswoman for District Attorney Morgenthau's office did not immediately return calls. -- CNN's Phil Hirshckorn contributed to this report.
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