Confession clouds verdict in Central Park 'wilding'

NEW YORK (AP) — More than a decade ago, Antron McCray sat in a police station and recounted a vicious gang rape of a woman jogging in Central Park.

"We all took turns getting on top of her," the 15-year-old told police in a videotaped confession that, authorities said, left no doubt he and four other Harlem teenagers committed the 1989 "wilding" that shocked the nation.

Now, a convicted rapist named Matias Reyes has come forward to say he alone attacked the jogger — a claim backed in part by DNA evidence.

The confession has forced prosecutors to reopen the case and fueled allegations that the five defendants, all 16 or younger at the time, were railroaded. All five have since completed their prison sentences of more than five years.

"A grave injustice has occurred," defense attorney Michael Warren said.

A growing chorus of defense lawyers, civil rights activists and politicians has urged a judge to set aside the 1990 convictions. At protest rallies and news conferences, they claim authorities mishandled evidence and coerced confessions from McCray and the others.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said his office needs more time to reinvestigate but that if the facts warrant it, he may agree to the defense request to set aside the verdict. "I intend to see justice will prevail," he said Wednesday. A hearing is set for Monday.

The five defendants declined comment through their lawyers.

The dramatic turnabout in what became known as the Central Park jogger case began in January, when Reyes found religion and broke his long silence. The jailed Reyes had never before been linked to the case.

Reyes, 31, is serving a life sentence for murdering a pregnant woman and raping three others in a rampage on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He told investigators that about three months before his arrest, he raped the jogger, crushed her skull with a rock and left her for dead — and that he followed his usual pattern of acting alone.

"I was a monster," he said in a recent television interview. "I did some real bad things to so many people and harmed them in so many ways."

Test results returned in May confirmed Reyes' DNA matched semen collected from the jogger's body.

The findings renewed questions about an episode firmly etched in urban lore.

On April 19, 1989, dozens of teenagers descended on the park to mug runners and bicyclists — a crime spree dubbed "wilding." The jogger, a white, 28-year-old investment banker, was found comatose in a pool of blood. She would recover, but had no memory of her ordeal.

Police quickly rounded up several suspects. Within 48 hours, McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise had confessed on videotape to beating and raping the woman one called the "jogging lady." A fifth teen, Yusef Salaam, had made admissions as well, detectives said.

The case involving black defendants and a white victim dominated headlines and stoked racial tensions. Developer Donald Trump took out newspaper ads saying the attack was worthy of the death penalty.

The atmosphere "was highly coercive," said Ronald Kuby, an attorney for Salaam. "People were calling for blood."

Investigators said blond hair found on one of the teens matched that of the victim. But there was no match on the semen, or other compelling physical evidence.

Prosecutors instead relied on the youths' own incriminating statements to win convictions at two trials in 1990.

Since confessing, Reyes appeared to bolster his credibility by taking responsibility for another unsolved sexual assault on a woman exercising in Central Park only two days before the jogger attack. His account matched that of the victim, who described a lone attacker.

In a new report, police said they re-examined forensic evidence used at the original trials, including the blond hair, and found it "useless" in conclusively linking the five youths to the crime.

Though now certain Reyes took part in the attack, investigators have not ruled out the possibility that he was a sixth assailant, or that he and the five youths struck separately.

The case may turn on purely legal grounds: A judge could throw out the convictions because defense attorneys were not informed of the similar attack in Central Park that week.

The convicted rapists seek total exoneration.

"They want to be able to walk down the street and not feel ashamed," Warren said.