NEW YORK (AP) — Mayor Bill de Blasio says New York City’s tentative $40 million settlement with the five men wrongly convicted for the 1989 Central Park jogger attack was “a moral issue.”
De Blasio said Monday that “an injustice was done” and the city had a “moral obligation” to respond to it.
The settlement agreed upon last week still needs to be approved by a federal judge and the city comptroller.
The five black and Hispanic defendants were found guilty as teenagers in 1990 in the attack on a white woman — an investment banker — who had gone for a run in the park.
They served six to 13 years in prison. Their convictions were thrown out in 2002 because of evidence that someone else, acting alone, committed the crime.
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