Trump Still Won’t Apologize to the Wrongly Convicted Central Park 5: ‘They Admitted Their Guilt’

Trump Still Won’t Apologize to the Wrongly Convicted Central Park 5: ‘They Admitted Their Guilt’

President Trump once again has refused to apologize for his calls to execute the Central Park 5 years after the men were exonerated.

Trump was departing the White House for his re-election campaign kickoff rally in Orlando on Tuesday when he stopped to answer a few questions from reporters camped out on the South Lawn. CNN’s April Ryan asked if, in the wake of a recent Netflix movie casting new light on the case, Trump would apologize to the men for comments he made when they were wrongly arrested for raping and beating a jogger in 1989:

Linda Fairstein was a prosecutor in the case who has suffered professional consequences in recent weeks for her role in the case after the film When They See Us cast new light on her role in railroading the Central Park 5.

The five men, who were teenagers at the time of their arrest, gave coerced confessions after being denied access to lawyers or their parents. They were later exonerated by DNA evidence. The men sued the city of New York over their wrongful arrests, convictions and years of imprisonment and received nearly $45 million in a settlement.

Trump in 1989 had taken out a full-page ad in New York newspapers calling for the death penalty for the five teens, who were all between the ages of 14 and 16 at the time. He has never apologized or admitted that the defendants were exonerated after years in prison. He was still proclaiming them to be guilty as recently as 2016.

Gary Legum

Gary Legum has written about politics and culture for Independent Journal Review, Salon, The Daily Beast, Wonkette, AlterNet and McSweeney's, among others. He currently lives in his native state of Virginia.

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