Donald Trump still refuses to believe that the Central Park Five, a group of 5 young black and brown boys aged 14 to 16 who were charged with the rape of a jogger in New York City in 1989, are innocent. During the trial, he took out a full page ads in numerous New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty specifically to ensure that the Central Park Five could be put to death. He as that convinced of their guilt and invested in seeing these five young boys put to death.
He could barely contain his racist views back then:
In 2013 he tweeted:
And then in 2014 he tweeted:
Now, in 2019, he still thinks they are guilty
In 2002 the five young men were exonerated thanks to DNA evidence. Another man, Matias Reyes, also confessed to the crime and his DNA was found at the scene. But Trump refuses to believe that the original five men charged were innocent. In fact, he said:
“You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt."
Clearly he has no idea that numerous confessions are thrown out because they are found to be coerced. That was the exact grounds for the confessions being thrown out in this case, in fact. Also, there is no "both sides" to DNA evidence. You either had your DNA there or you didn't.
In 2014 the five innocent men were given a $40 million dollar settlement following their lengthy prison sentences. Kharey Wise spent about 13 years in prison. The other four men, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana Jr., each served about seven years in prison.
