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The Case of Dr. Yusef Salaam

📻 Episode #100
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Oct 30, 2019

About This Episode

On the night of April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old female jogger was brutally attacked and raped in New York’s Central Park. She was found unconscious with her skull fractured, and 75 percent of her blood drained from her body. Five teens from Harlem—all between the ages of 14 and 16-years-old—were tried and convicted of the…

The Case

On the night of April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old female jogger was brutally attacked and raped in New York’s Central Park. She was found unconscious with her skull fractured, and 75 percent of her blood drained from her body. Five teens from Harlem—all between the ages of 14 and 16-years-old—were tried and convicted of the crime in one of the most frenzied cases in the city’s history. The woman was dubbed the “Central Park jogger” and the accused teens became known collectively as the “Central Park Five.” One of those boys, Dr. Yusef Salaam, was just 15 years old when he was tried as a juvenile and convicted of rape and assault. He was sentenced to five to ten years in prison. In early 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and rapist, admitted that he alone was responsible for the attack on the Central Park jogger. Reyes had already committed another rape near Central Park days earlier in 1989, using the same modus operandi. Although the police had Reyes’s name on file, they failed to connect Reyes to the rape and assault of the Central Park jogger. Eventually, the evidence from the crime was subjected to DNA testing and matched the profile of Reyes, who is currently serving a life sentence. On December 19, 2002, on the recommendation of the Manhattan District Attorney, the convictions of the five men were overturned. Dr. Yusef Salaam had served nearly seven years for a crime he did not commit. Since his release, he has become a family man, father, poet, activist, and inspirational speaker. He has committed himself to advocating for and educating people on the issues of mass incarceration, police brutality and misconduct, false confessions, press ethics and bias, race and law, and the disparities in America’s criminal justice system, especially for young men of color. He is featured in the 2019 hit Netflix series When They See Us.

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts

Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.

00:07:41

“Speaker 1: you want to add anything to that description? Speaker 4: You know it was it was definitely a witch hunts Speaker 4: and a frenzy of a witch hunt because when you Speaker 4: think about other people's progyptions, you know, folks look at Speaker 4: people from so to speak, the darker ants of society”

00:28:10

“Speaker 1: that's important for people who are listening, who are someday Speaker 1: going to serve on a jury to know if you're seeing, Speaker 1: especially a case where there's no other evidence other than Speaker 1: a false confession, other than a confession, you really have Speaker 1: to dive into that, and you have to be aware”

00:47:58

“Speaker 4: under him that should have ever went after us. And Speaker 4: it cost the city millions of dollars. It costs a million. Speaker 1: Well, it costs so much more than just the millions Speaker 1: of dollars they had to pay out, because it also costs,”

Listen to the Episode

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Resources & links from the episode:

• lavaforgood.com
• omnystudio.com

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Also on the podcast: #130 Dr. Yusef Salaam in Times of COVID