Councilmember Charles Barron is on the frontline to make sure the Central Park Five get the compensation they deserve from the city. Last Wednesday, Barron, along with attorney Alton Maddox, put forth a resolution before the City Council to compensate the five young men wrongly accused of the 1989 rape of the Central Park jogger.

Before presenting the resolution to the council, Barron held a press conference on the steps of City Hall. With nearly 50 supporters behind him, Barron said that the five men who were sent to prison as teenagers and released as adults should not get unjust treatment again.

"We don't want them to be victimized twice," Barron said. "This was a gross miscarriage of justice. They did everything but waterboard them. They were only 14 years old, and they took the best years of their lives, and now you are going to have them go through a trial in order to get compensation?"

In April 1989, Trisha Meili was raped in Central Park while she was jogging. Her injuries were so severe that she had no memory of the attack. Police claimed that the suspects were a gang of Black youths. In 1990, Anton McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam were all convicted of rape after being pressured by police to make false confessions.

In 2002, Matias Reyes, who was serving a life sentence for rape and assault, admitted to the rape of Meili. DNA evidence confirmed that it was in fact Reyes who committed the rape.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Tejada vacated the convictions of the five men, and they were removed from the New York State sex offender registry. They spent a total of 12 years in prison.

Barron said, "These men are light of the fact that the NYPD and the district attorney's office falsely accused and convicted five young innocent men of a crime that they did not commit. These men should be financially compensated by the city for every day that they served in prison."

Wise and Santana were both in City Council chambers last Wednesday in the balcony as Barron presented the resolution to Government Operations Chair Councilwoman Helen Sears. The letter was co-sponsored by Councilman Larry Seabrook and was signed by 12 other council members. While Barron said that no amount of money can replace the years the men lost while spending time in prison, fast resolution is needed.

"We want compensation right now," he said. "They are all struggling, and the families are going through so much pain. These young men were wrongly accused for something they didn't do."