President Donald Trump on Tuesday refused to apologize to the men in the Central Park Five case after he took out a full-page ad demanding the death penalty for the attackers in a 1989 assault and rape of a jogger.
'Why do you bring that question up now?,' the president said when he was asked about it on the South Lawn before he left for Florida.
He suggested the men were guilty when he noted there were people on both sides of the issue in the 1989 case, which has returned to the spotlight after a Netflix series highlighted the injustices and wrongful conviction of five teenage black boys.
'It's an interesting time to bring it up. You have people on both sides of that. People have admitted their guilt. If you look at Linda Fairstein and some of the prosecutors, they think that the city should never have settled that case. So we'll leave it at that,' he said.
President Donald Trump refused to say on Tuesday if he owes an apology to the men in the Central Park Five case
The case centers on the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old who was jogging in Central Park when she was attacked.
On May 1, 1989, ten days after the assault occurred, Trump took out a full page ad in four New York City newspapers calling for the death penalty.
'BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE. I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them.'
New York state abolished the death penalty in 1965 except for in cases involving the death of a police officer.
The case has been back in the news of late after Netflix released the film 'When They See Us' - a dramatization of the story of the five Black teenagers who were wrongfully convicted.
There also has been heavy criticism of Linda Fairstein, the chief of the Manhattan district attorney's Sex Crimes Unit from 1976 and 2002, who helped prosecute the case.
There has been heavy criticism of Linda Fairstein, the chief of the Manhattan district attorney's Sex Crimes Unit from 1976 and 2002, who helped prosecute the case
New York City officials called for a review of the cases Fairstein prosecuted, but Cyrus Vance, the current Manhattan District Attorney, declined to do so.
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams had called for the review.
'It is even more clear today than it was before that former Assistant District Attorney Linda Fairstein...engaged in immoral, unethical, and illegal conduct. It is crucial that we now re-examine and investigate all of her past cases, particularly those where were no DNA evidence was found. I suspect we will find more victims in her wake,' Williams wrote in a letter to Vance seeking the review.
The 'Central Park Five' - five teenage black boys aged 14 to 16 - were convicted of rape and assault in 1990. Their prison sentences ranged from six to 16 years.
They were cleared in 2002 after a convicted murderer named Matias Reyes confessed to raping Meili. And DNA evidence backed up his confession.
The boys sued the city for discrimination and emotional distress and New York settled in 2014 for $41 million.
At that time - one year before he announced his presidential bid - Trump called the settlement a 'disgrace.'
'Forty million dollars is a lot of money for the taxpayers of New York to pay when we are already the highest taxed city and state in the country. The recipients must be laughing out loud at the stupidity of the city,' he wrote in an op-ed for the New York Daily New.s
'Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels,' he noted.
Fairstein angrily hit back at Netflix and 'When They See Us' director Ava DuVernay in an op-ed, claiming the new Netflix series is an 'outright fabrication' and says that while the men were not guilty of rape, they did commit other crimes which should not be forgotten.
Fairstein, 72, was the head of the Manhattan District Attorney's sex crimes unit when Raymond Santana, 14, Kevin Richardson, 15, Antron McCray, 15, Yusef Salaam, 15, and Korey Wise, 16, were accused of raping and attacking Meili.
The teens had been in the park with others and, along with raping Meili, were convicted of assault and robbery.
Most of the charges applied to her but others applied to two male joggers and Patricia and Gerry Malone, a couple on a tandem bike, who they also confessed to attacking.
They were exonerated in 2002 following the confession and DNA match of Matias Reyes, who confessed to attacking Meili.
Their other convictions were also overturned, which Fairstein says was a mistake.
She left the District Attorney's Office in the same year and has since made a living writing crime books though none are about the case.
But she faced intense backlash after the film aired in May. She resigned from several charity boards and her publisher of her fictional crime novels - Little, Brown and Dutton - dropped her.
The boys' convictions have received newfound notoriety thanks to Ava Duvernay's new Netflix series 'When They See Us,' in which Fairstein is played by Felicity Huffman.
Since its release, there has been a tidal wave of criticism against the former prosecutor who critics say must pay for her role in the ordeal.
Ms. Duvernay's film attempts to portray me as an overzealous prosecutor and a bigot.... none of this is true. The Central Park Jogger was not their only victim
Fairstein, however, stands by her conduct and claims she has been unfairly prejudiced.
She says that they were never painted as the sole perpetrators of the sex attack and that juries knew as much because there was unidentified DNA on Meili's body when they were sent down.
Just because they did not perform the act themselves, she argued, it does not mean they never touched or harmed her.
'Ms. DuVernay's film attempts to portray me as an overzealous prosecutor and a bigot, the police as incompetent or worse, and the five suspects as innocent of all charges against them. None of this is true,' she wrote in her op-ed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month.
Fairstein wrote that the men may not have been guilty of rape, but that they were guilty of assault, robbery and other crimes because they were part of a 30-strong riot taking place in the park.
'At about 9 p.m. April 19, 1989, a large group of young men gathered on the corner of 110th Street and Fifth Avenue for the purpose of robbing and beating innocent people in Central Park.
Fairstein slammed Ava DuVernay, the show's creator, who is shown with the five men who were wrongfully convicted. They are, from L-R: Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Korey Wise, Antron McCray and Yusef Salaam
TOP (L-R): Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana. BOTTOM (L-R): Kevin Richardson and Kharey Wise
Antron McCray
'There were more than 30 rioters, and the woman known as the 'Central Park jogger,' Trisha Meili, was not their only victim.
'Eight others were attacked, including two men who were beaten so savagely that they required hospitalization for head injuries,' she wrote.
She also maintains that they did attack Meili in some way but that they were not the main culprits of her attack.
'Mr. Reyes's confession, DNA match and claim that he acted alone required that the rape charges against the five be vacated.
'I agreed with that decision, and still do.
'But the other charges, for crimes against other victims, should not have been vacated.
For decades, the Central Park Five case has centered on the narrative of five young black teenagers being wrongfully convicted of raping Trishia Meili.
Rape was however only one of the multiple charges each of the boys was convicted of in 1990.
They were all charged with robbery, assault, riot, rape, sexual abuse and attempted murder.
Most of the charges related to Meili but some applied to John Loughlin, a former Marine and teacher, who was beaten with a metal pipe in the head.
There was also Patricia and Gerry Malone, a couple on a tandem bike who said the boys attacked them.
When Matias Reyes confessed to the rape in 2002, claiming to have acted alone, all of the men's convictions from the night of the incident were vacated.
District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said at the time that they should also be expunged because of the 'extraordinary circumstances'.
He claimed that because the boys confessed to raping Meili - which was not true - under duress, any other confessions to other crimes made at the same time should also be thrown out because a jury might not have believed them.
Fairstein however says there was sufficient evidence that they committed them.
She also maintains that while the boys did not commit the act of the rape, they had a hand in attacking Meili.
'Nothing Mr. Reyes said exonerated these five of those attacks.
'And there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first-degree assault, robbery, riot and other charges,' she said.
Fairstein also picked apart some of the details presented in the series about how the boys were treated.
'Consider the
