Al-Jazeera.com :
A US federal judge has approved a $41m settlement between New York City and five men wrongfully convicted of the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park, ending a decade-long civil rights lawsuit.
The settlement’s details had been previously reported but were publicly disclosed for the first time on Friday, when US Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis signed off on the deal in New York.
The brutal attack, known as the “Central Park Jogger” case, drew national headlines and was cited as evidence that the city’s crime rate had spiraled out of control.
The five men, all black or Hispanic teenagers at the time, were arrested soon after the assault on 28-year-old Trisha Meili, a white investment banker.
The men confessed following lengthy interrogations but later recanted, claiming their admissions were the result of exhaustion and police coercion.
The men were eventually exonerated after Matias Reyes, a serial rapist and murderer, confessed in 2002, with DNA tying him to the scene. By then, however, all five had served prison terms. Korey Wise, who at 16 was the oldest at the time of the attack, served 13 years and will receive $12.25m.
The other four – Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam – will be paid $7.125m each, or roughly $1m for each year of imprisonment.
