The remaining five—Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise (known as the Central Park Five, later the Exonerated Five)—were convicted of the charged offenses and served sentences ranging from seven to thirteen years.

[12] Some of the group committed several attacks, assaults, and robberies against people who were either walking, biking, or jogging in the northernmost part of the park near the reservoir, and victims began to report the incidents to police.

[12][13] The teenagers roamed south along the park's East Drive and the 97th Street transverse, between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.[12] Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Michael Vigna, a competitive bike rider, testified that, at about 9:05 p.m., he was hassled by a group of boys, one of whom tried to punch him.

[14] Patricia "Trisha" Ellen Meili,[15] a 28-year-old,[16][17] was going for a regular run in Central Park shortly before 9:00 p.m.[13][18] While jogging, she was knocked down, dragged nearly 300 feet (91 m) off the roadway,[13]: ¶ 26  and violently physically and sexually assaulted.

[12][19] About four hours later at 1:30 am, she was found naked, gagged, tied, and covered in mud and blood in a shallow ravine about 300 feet north of the 102nd Street Crossing, a wooded area of the park.

[41] Reverend Calvin O. Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, who came to support the five suspects, said to The New York Times, "The first thing you do in the United States of America when a white woman is raped is round up a bunch of black youths, and I think that's what happened here.

Two newspapers aimed at the African American community—The City Sun and the Amsterdam News—and the black-owned talk radio station WLIB continued to cover the case as it progressed.

[42] About ten days after the boys started to confess, real estate magnate Donald Trump called on May 1, 1989, for the return of the death penalty for murder in full-page advertisements published in all four of the city's major newspapers.

"[48][49] According to defendant Yusef Salaam, quoted in a February 2016 article in The Guardian, Trump "was the fire starter" in 1989, as "common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty.

[63] The defense attorneys noted that each youth had limited intellectual ability and said that neither was capable of preparing the written statements or videotaped confessions submitted by the prosecution as evidence.

[65] Richardson was the only one of the five defendants to be convicted of attempted murder of Meili, in addition to sodomy and assault of her, and robbery and riot in the attack on John Loughlin, another jogger in the park.

[70][71] In a 2016 Guardian article, defense counsel William Warren was reported saying that he thought Trump's ads in 1989 had played a role in securing conviction by the juries, saying that "he poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York City and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim.

[56]: 482 Through their time of incarceration, McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise maintained their innocence in the rape and attack of Meili, including at hearings before parole boards.

[90] During the summer of 1989, Reyes raped four women, killing one, and was interrupted after robbing a fifth—he was sentenced to 33+1⁄2 years to life after he pleaded guilty to the top counts in each case.

[13] Morgenthau appointed a team led by Assistant District Attorneys Nancy Ryan and Peter Casolaro to investigate the case, based on Reyes's confession and a review of evidence.

[13] Based on interviews and other evidence, the team believed that Reyes had acted alone: The rape appeared to have taken place in the North Woods area after the main body of the thirty teenagers had moved well to the south, and the timeline reconstruction of events made it unlikely that he was joined by any of the defendants.

[96] Based on newly discovered evidence—specifically, an affidavit by Reyes confessing to the crime and declaring that he acted alone—Wise, McCray, Santana, Richardson, and Salaam filed motions to have their convictions set aside and for the court "to grant whatever further relief may be just and proper.

"[13]: ¶¶ 3–4  In late 2002, Robert Morgenthau, District Attorney for New York County, conducted an investigation into the potential innocence of Wise, McCray, Santana, Richardson, and Salaam.

[12] Ryan continued: "Ultimately, there proved to be no physical or forensic evidence recovered at the scene or from the person or effects of the victim which connected the defendants to the attack on the jogger, or could establish how many perpetrators participated.

[32] Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly complained at the time that Morgenthau's staff had denied his detectives access to "important evidence" needed to conduct a thorough investigation.

[104][90] In its January 2003 Armstrong Report, the panel "did not dispute the legal necessity of setting aside the convictions of the five defendants based on the new DNA evidence that Mr. Reyes had raped the jogger.

"[104] The report said Reyes had most likely "either joined in the attack as it was ending or waited until the defendants had moved on to their next victims before descending upon her himself, raping her and inflicting upon her the brutal injuries that almost caused her death.

[104][105]Edward Conlon, a writer and former New York police officer, said that Armstrong, "[i]n support of his assessment, ... offers a number of tantalizing theories, only partially undergirded by fully explored evidence".

Retired New York City detective Edward Conlon, who had been involved with the case, in an article published in October 2014 in The Daily Beast, quoted incriminatory statements allegedly made by some of the youths after they had been taken into custody by police in April 1989.

[147] The Five made the news in late March and early April 2023, after Trump was indicted on felony charges of falsifying business records in an alleged hush money payment scheme and cover-up before the 2016 presidential election.

[148] He reminded the world that Trump never apologized for the misdirected vengeance and ran a full-page ad in the New York Times with the headline text, "Bring back justice & fairness.

"[151] During a presidential debate on September 10, 2024, Trump falsely said the Five had initially pleaded guilty to the assault before changing their pleas (actually some of them had confessed but recanted before entering any official plea); Trump also described during the debate his viewpoint at the time of those events: “I said, 'well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately….” Doctors predicted the victim might ultimately die of her injuries, but she survived.

[152][153] Because of the great publicity surrounding the case, the vacated conviction of Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise highlighted the issue of false confessions.

Tyrone Prescott, 17, Kelvin Furman, 22, and another young man, Darren Decotea (name corrected a few days later as Darron Decoteau),[161] 17, were apprehended within two weeks and prosecuted for the crimes.

[161] Social justice activists and critics have pointed to the lack of extensive coverage of the attack of the woman in Brooklyn as showing the media's racial bias; they have accused it of overlooking violence against minority women.