Frank Franklin II / Associated Press
In this Jan. 17, 2013 file photo, from right, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, and Yusef Salaamat, three of five men exonerated in the Central Park jogger rape case, attend a rally in New York.
Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Raymond Santana, one of the members of the so-called Central Park Five, spent five years in prison for a crime for which he was later exonerated. The 45-year-old Santana will tell his story at 6 p.m. tonight at CSN’s North Las Vegas Campus as part of the school’s free Den Talks speaker series.
Santana was 14 when he and four other teens were arrested for the rape and assault of Trisha Meili, who was jogging in Manhattan’s Central Park in April 1989. The New York Times described it as “one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s, and it prompted then-real estate magnate Donald Trump to take out an $85,000 advertisement calling for the return of the death penalty.
Santana and the other young men were exonerated in 2002 after convicted murderer and rapist Matias Reyes admitted he was solely responsible for the attack, later confirmed by DNA evidence.
The five men’s exoneration was examined in the award-winning Netflix series When They See Us, initially sparked by a tweet from Santana to the filmmaker Ava DuVernay. The men are now advocates for criminal justice reform. Santana is a producer, fashion designer and activist who has worked closely with the Innocence Project to help protect young people of color.
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
