The Central Park Five were exonerated of the actual rape of Trish Melli, but they were still a bunch of violent scumbags who were harassing people in the park and even pounded one into unconsciousness. They confessed to being at the rape but not raping or attempting to murder her. They later retracted the confessions. It's still open whether they retracted at the behest of counsel or if they really were innocent of rape, but they were certainly guilty of terrorizing and physically assaulting numerous random people. The irredeemable piece of trash who confessed to the rape, Matias Reyes, was serving a life sentence and had nothing to lose. In an earlier trial, a psychiatrist testified in HIS defense that Reyes was incapable of telling the truth. Of course, after his confession it was convenient for many to assume he was telling the truth in asserting he acted alone, despite the confessions of the CP5 of having been present.
The CP5, even if technically not guilty of rape, are worthless stains on the human race and didn't deserve a penny from their civil suits. I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. They were fortunate that an idiot like Bill de Blasio saw fit to use them for political points and pushed for a settlement of 41 million. Trump is right that there still is a ton of evidence against these creeps, including consistencies among their original, independently obtained confessions that show they all knew way too much not to have been at least present at the rape. The Armstrong Report, whose authorship included a civil rights lawyer (Michael Armstrong) who made his name prosecuting police corruption, concluded that the most likely scenario was that the ultimately convicted rapist (Reyes) didn't act alone and that he probably arrived and raped the dying girl after the CP5 had their way with her. Good for Trump for not ignoring all the other evidence and analysis. He smartly did not take the serial lying rapist Reyes at his word.
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