Read the most thorough, brilliant report on the Central Park Jogger case! V. The Harlem Spokesfolks Mobilize

Read the most thorough, brilliant report on the Central Park Jogger case!

[“I. Preface”;

“II. The Crime: April 19, 1989”;

“III. Harlem Goes Bonkers”; and

“IV. Harlem Says They're Innocent.”]


V. The Harlem Spokesfolks Mobilize
By Nicholas Stix

By Thomas Clough
V. The Harlem Spokesfolks Mobilize

Now that the man with the 76 IQ who lives in a world of fantasy and says he wants to be a superhero has linked himself to a sexual assault on the jogger, the professional spokesfolks of Harlem have the pretext they need to do the things they yearn to do:

1. pose as righteous victims
2. trash the police and the courts
3. ignore the evidence

A klatch of about 60 black and Hispanic activists held a news conference on the steps of City Hall which included black Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, members of the Black and Hispanic Caucus and radical black church leaders. Long gone were Al Sharpton’s bussed-in protestors chanting the rape victim’s name and calling her a whore. The black publishers who splattered her name all over the front pages of black newspapers were now demanding that the confessed and convicted rapists be declared innocent. The defense lawyers were no longer referring to an “alleged rape.” Everyone made a point of not referring to the victim once again as “a white woman of privilege.”

Prominent in the crowd was black City Councilman Bill Perkins who circulated a document that repeated the rape victim’s name no less than eight times. When he was called on it he said it was just an innocent oversight; the man is a lying scumbag. At least Al Sharpton had enough political smarts not to mention a word about his own sleazy methods when he recalled his role in the Central Park rape case in his autobiography. In all seriousness, Councilman Perkins declared: “There is irrefutable DNA evidence that corroborates the confession of a convicted murderer and rapist that he committed this crime and acted alone!”

Bill Perkins is talking trash. The DNA recovered from the victim’s sock places Matias Reyes at the scene of the crime, but a tiny spot of DNA could never corroborate that Reyes acted alone. No one doubts that over thirty teens went wilding that night. No one has ever questioned the veracity of the teens confessions that they robbed, terrified, bloodied and, in some cases, beat unconscious at least nine innocent strangers. It was their idea of having fun. But when they confessed to running down and sexually molesting a little white woman, Harlem suddenly couldn’t believe its ears. It couldn’t be true. This particular gang of fist-swinging, rock-throwing, pipe-wielding teens would never have crossed that particular line. And why couldn’t it be true? Because the truth would embarrass Harlem, that beautiful creative community that gave the world . . .wilding. That’s the problem with emotional arguments: they have a way of making a person, or a community, look stupid.

Unfortunately, stupid arguments can make damned effective propaganda. The Black and Hispanic Caucus couldn’t care less about being logical or prudent or wise; their aim is to win politically. The purpose of all the photo ops, all the rants, all the We Shall Overcome sing-alongs was to put political pressure on one man: Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

New York’s Criminal Procedure Law Section 440.10 explains how convicts can get their verdicts overturned. Subsection G of the law cites “new evidence” as grounds for seeking the dismissal of a conviction. When he was asked about the rape convictions at a press conference, DA Morgenthau read a prepared statement and said that investigators needed more time to re-interview witnesses and re-read 15,000 pages of transcripts and documents. The Harlem spokesfolks didn’t want any delays; they wanted an instant exoneration. They had to console themselves with rumors that there was a faction within Morgenthau’s office that was arguing in favor of not defending the convictions: the defendants had served their sentences; why get involved in a political struggle?

It was Morgenthau’s decision whether to recommend scrapping the lesser charges of riot and robbery of which the teens were convicted. If all the convictions are overturned, the convicts would still have a difficult time trying to win damages from the city. To win a judgment in civil court they must prove purposeful wrongdoing by the police or the prosecutors.

On October 21, 2002 Judge Tejada faced a courtroom packed with Jogger Five protesters. When he gave prosecutors more time to reexamine the rape case the crowd was not happy; they spilled out of the courthouse to join an angry rally on the sidewalk outside 100 Centre Street where they railed against the judge’s decision to extend the deadline until December fifth. Councilman Perkins (D-Harlem) warned darkly that the convicts’ families were growing impatient with DA Morgenthau and were considering demanding an independent investigation. The mother of Kharey Wise gave the father of Raymond Santana a warm hug.

Also at the rally was Sharonne Salaam, mother of Yusef Salaam, looking resplendent in a “Yusef Is Innocent” T-shirt.

Another group of about 20 black folks descended upon Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan to demand an apology from real-estate developer Donald Trump. On May 1, 1989 Mr. Trump had taken out full-page advertisements in four New York newspapers calling for a return of the death penalty. Trump said he wanted the “criminals of every age” who were accused of beating and raping the woman in Central Park “to be afraid.” The protesters began to chant “Trump is a chump!” A lawyer named Roger Wareham, who co-represents Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCray, said: “We’re here to highlight the role Trump played: mobilizing people to support the death penalty.” The rally was organized by the Brooklyn-based Millions for Reparations, which “opposes the continued racist treatment of African people within the criminal-justice system,” explained the group’s spokeswoman Amadi Ajamu.

The protesters had rather vague ideas about Trumps 600-word advertisements; they misquoted Trump by including words such as “animals” and “wilding” that were nowhere in the ads. The text does not name any of the defendants. The same text ran in the New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post,andNew York Newsday. The total bill set Trump back $85,000 in pocket change. Trump had said “I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.” Was Mr. Trump paraphrasing the Bible?

When Trump wouldn’t apologize for expressing his opinion, the protesters got even more pissed off. Said veteran demonstrator Carol Taylor: “Of course he won’t apologize, because he’s a rich white colorist male who is wallowing in the unearned privilege of his white skin color.” Another protest was already planned for a site near Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Ms. Taylor opined, “I’ll be there. I think I’ll make my sign bigger.”

At another rally at One Hogan Place, near DA Morgenthau’s office, 20 protesters marched in a circle holding signs that read “A Lynching, Northern Style” and chanting “Drop the charges now.” They were up-staged by a contingent from the National Organization for Women and the Street Harassment Project. The streetwise black protesters confronted the white gals from NOW; they began to shout things like “You helped convict those kids!” The NOW gals sputtered that they endorsed proper arrests. The NOW president in New York, Matthea Marquart, looking small behind a big bouquet of microphones, offered her opinion that a “media circus” had driven the convictions. Someone in the crowd shouted “Stop abortions!” A lady reporter muttered to her camera operator, “This is not going very well.”

Judge Tejada later delayed his final decision until February 6, 2003. He told the defense lawyers that they had until January 6th to respond to DA Morgenthau’s filing on December 5th, 2002. The defense team was not happy; they wanted a rushed judgment and total exoneration; they held an immediate news conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court. Attorney Wareham said the families of the convicts were being made to “suffer needlessly” because of the judge’s caution and the DA’s reexamination of the evidence.

Well, these are the facts: At the station house all five defendants were repeatedly read their rights. Every suspect was asked if he wanted a lawyer; they were all told that if they wanted a lawyer the questioning would instantly stop and a lawyer would be provided to them free of charge. All of them freely declined this generous offer and freely chose to spill their guilty guts. A sixth “youth,” Steve Lopez, refused to make a statement and was not prosecuted for the rape. All of this was captured on video tape. Parents or guardians were present during the interrogations of anyone under 16 years old. All of these jerks placed themselves at the scene of the crime; they all gave richly textured accounts of how they went about the nasty business of ensnaring the woman and then torturing, battering, mutilating and sexually molesting her. Several of these little creeps admitted to holding the white woman down while others took turns raping her. Raymond Santana described how he fondled the woman; others tell how Santana punched the defenseless woman. Kevin Richardson explained how the woman he was attacking had scratched his face; his bloody scratch supported his admission. Others described how Kevin raped the woman and smashed her with a rock.

Police records show that within 7 to 12 hours of their arrests, four of the suspects gave written statements that reflected their oral confessions. There are four hours of video tape, all of it incriminating. They describe beating and robbing strangers in the park; they admit to attacking cyclists and joggers. They assaulted another female jogger and beat two male joggers. They were arrested soon after their crimes and had no opportunity to coordinate their stories, and yet their stories are all of a piece.

According to Yusef Salaam, “We hid in the trees and saw a female jogger coming. Kevin ran out and punched her. She was still struggling, so I hit her again. It was something to do. It was fun.” Each of the five suspects implicated the others. Four of the suspects had their parents present during the interviews. The parents were read the same Miranda warnings as were the suspects. The parents granted their permission for the detectives to question their children without a lawyer.

Now the convicted rapists, their parents and the “activists” who advised them claim that the defendants were the victims of an elaborate police conspiracy. It’s the OJ defense all over again. These are the implications of such a defense: the detectives, their supervisors and the prosecutors would have to conspire to coerce confessions from the teenagers and the parents would have to agree to cooperate in the conspiracy. The investigators must provide every suspect with a detailed script so that all of their confessions would agree. All of the suspects and their parents must agree to give bogus confessions on videotape. And finally, the cops would have to clear their script with the famous psychic reader Miss Cleo, to make certain that when the comatose victim awakened she didn’t expose the conspiracy by giving a completely different version of the assault upon her. But then again, up in Harlem, where everyone just “knows” that the White Power Structure uses tricknology to dupe the poor hapless Negro, anything is possible.

Speaking of the White Power Structure, it ain’t so white any more. The legion of New York public servants who brought these rapists to justice were one damned smart rainbow coalition: black, white, Anglo, Hispanic, male, female and “other.” They’re good at what they do, but they’re far too diverse a group to keep any conspiracy a secret.

Additional Material

Stix: “‘It Was Fun’—Robert K. Tanenbaum vs. the Central Park Five, 25 Years Later”; and

Stix: “Ken Burns’ The Central Park Five: The New To Kill a Mockingbird—Fiction Designed to Induce White Guilt.”

(N.S.: These were not the first reports I wrote on the Central Park Jogger case. I’d already written many, going back at least to 2000.)

“The Report That Ken Burns Doesn’t Want You to Read: The Armstrong Report on the Central Park Five’s Many Violent Crimes, and Matias Reyes”

I. Preface
II. The Crime: April 19, 1989
III. Harlem Goes Bonkers
IV. Harlem Says They’re Innocent
V. The Harlem Spokesfolks Mobilize
VI. Three Detectives Remember
VII. A Prosecutor Remembers
VIII. The Star Witness
IX. His Story Stinks
X. The Confessions
XI. How Guilty is Harlem
XII. The Forgotten Victim
XIII. Update to the Central Park Rape Case
XIV. The Victim’s Doctor Breaks His Silence
XV. The Jogger Rape Saga Continues
XVI. Thursday, December 5, 2002
XVII. The Matias Reyes/Kharey Wise Connection
XVIII. Don’t Be Fooled
XIX. The End Game
XX. Here Comes the Judge
XXI. Is Nancy Ryan Trustworthy?
XXII. Nancy Ryan’s Twisted Vision
XXIII. Twisted Justice


Additional Material

Stix: “‘It Was Fun’—Robert K. Tanenbaum vs. the Central Park Five, 25 Years Later”; and

Stix: “Ken Burns’ The Central Park Five: The New To Kill a Mockingbird—Fiction Designed to Induce White Guilt.”

(N.S.: These were not the first reports I wrote on the Central Park Jogger case. I’d already written many, going back at least to 2000.)

“The Report That Ken Burns Doesn’t Want You to Read: The Armstrong Report on the Central Park Five’s Many Violent Crimes, and Matias Reyes”