Saying it “closes a very difficult chapter in our city’s history,” Comptroller Scott Stringer signed off on a $40.75 million settlement Thursday with five black and Hispanic men wrongfully convicted in the notorious 1989 rape of a Central Park jogger.
The settlement with the so-called “Central Park Five” also requires approval by Manhattan federal Judge Deborah Batts, but that is expected to be a formality.
“In my judgment, this settlement is a prudent and equitable solution for all parties to the lawsuit and closes a very difficult chapter in our city’s history,” Stringer said in a statement.
The expected agreement will resolve a $250 million civil-rights lawsuit the men filed in 2003, charging they were wrongly convicted and imprisoned in the notorious case.
Jonathan Moore, a lawyer for the men, called the settlement “substantial” but added “it can’t compensate for the injustice these young men and their families had to deal with in 1989 — and have had to live with ever since.”
The five men were found guilty at trial — and did between six and 13 years in prison — but their convictions were tossed in 2002 after a career criminal confessed to the attack.
Their suit alleged that cops forced false confessions through threats and beatings, and that key DNA evidence, which would have cleared them, was deliberately ignored.
Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise were all convicted of the beating and rape of the investment banker near the park’s Reservoir.
They are expected to appear together at a City Hall press conference at 11 am Friday to address the media.
Mayor Bill de Blasio had vowed to settle the case after taking office this year and put an end to a lurid chapter in New York history in which a “wolf pack” of “wilding” youths were said to have attacked 28-year-old Trisha Meili as she took her evening jog through the park.
In 2002, a judge granted a motion to vacate the 13-year-old convictions after a serial rapist who was already in jail said he committed the crime, a confession backed up by DNA evidence.
The Wall Street Journal, however, last week reported that two doctors who treated Meili said in recent interviews that some of her wounds were not consistent with Matias Reyes’ account of the attack.
The revelation casts doubt on the claim that Reyes was the only attacker.
The “Central Park Five,” now in their late 30s to early 40s, were 14 to 16 when arrested.
De Blasio’s desire to settle the case was in stark contrast to the Bloomberg administration’s opposition to a deal.