Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told CNN this week that he believes the Central Park 5, convicted of the brutal assault of a young woman jogging in the park in 1989, are still guilty.
"They admitted they were guilty," Trump said this week in a statement to CNN's Miguel Marquez. "The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same."
And of course, police never, ever lie.
The brutal crime shook the city. A 28-year-old banker who had been jogging at night in Central Park was raped, bludgeoned with a rock and was found hours later, tied up, stripped and suffering from hypothermia and brain damage.
A group of five teenage boys who were in the park at the time and who may have been involved in committing other crimes were arrested for the assault. After extended questioning over two days -- during which the suspects claim they were deprived of sleep and food -- police say they confessed to the crime. None acknowledged actually raping the victim, instead pointing fingers at the others.
Trump was so outraged at the time he took out full page ads in four of New York’s largest daily newspapers calling for the death penalty to be brought back, as well as support for the police.
Trump would later relent …partially …by saying that the group did not deserve the death penalty since the jogger did not die, but he has also continually ripped the $41 million settlement agreed to by the city with the CP5.
In 2002, the CP5—Korey Wise, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Yusef Salaam—were exonerated for the crime after Matias Reyes came forward, saying he alone was responsible for the attack on the woman. Reyes’ DNA matched that taken from the woman, as well as his description of the crime to investigators. No DNA evidence was ever found linking them the CP5 to the crime.
But hey, a little thing like truth has never gotten in Donald Trump’s way before. No reason to start now.