6th Teen In 'Central Park 5' Case To Be Exonerated, D.A. Bragg Says

NEW YORK CITY ? A largely forgotten sixth defendant in the infamous 1989 Central Park jogger case should have his conviction tossed out due to a lack of evidence, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Monday.

Steven Lopez, who was 14 at the time of the attack, was convicted of robbing a male jogger in Central Park on the same April night that a female jogger was brutally raped and assaulted nearby. Prosecutors had accused Lopez of participating in the rape as well, but dropped those charges as part of a plea deal in 1991.

On Monday, Bragg told a judge that Lopez's conviction should not stand ? a determination that prosecutors made after re-investigating his case at Lopez's request.

The assault of the female jogger, who later identified herself as investment banker Trisha Meili, received wide media coverage and inflamed racial tensions in the city. Five other teenagers, all Black and Latino, were convicted of participating in the attack despite maintaining their innocence ? though their convictions were vacated in 2002 after DNA evidence implicated another man.

Lopez's exoneration will be Bragg's first as Manhattan's district attorney, the New York Times notes.

"We talk about the Central Park Five, the Exonerated Five, but there were six people on that indictment," Bragg told the Times this week. "And the other five who were charged, their convictions were vacated. And it?s now time to have Mr. Lopez?s charge vacated."

"Chose Steven as the sacrificial lamb"

Unlike the other defendants, Lopez pleaded guilty ? in his case, to the lesser charge of robbing a male jogger in the park that same night.

Prosecutors still say Lopez was in the park on that night in 1989. Police, responding to reports of the male jogger's mugging, stopped a group of teenage boys near Central Park West and West 102nd Street ? and Lopez was among the few who did not take off running, Bragg's office said in a motion on Monday.

At the Central Park Precinct house, Lopez was then subjected to the same harsh policing tactics that led the other teenage defendants to initially make false confessions, according to Bragg's office and other reports.

Arriving at the precinct around 11 p.m., Lopez was kept in a cell for 20 hours before being taken into an interrogation room where his parents were present. While his Spanish-speaking mother spoke no English and his father spoke only a little, they were not given an interpreter.

After two and a half hours of questioning, Lopez signed a statement admitting to helping rob the male jogger ? but did not put himself at the site of the female jogger's rape, "despite persistent questioning," according to Bragg's office.

After Lopez signed the statement, his father asked that his son not be subjected to further questions ? a request that prosecutors ignored, the D.A.'s office now says.

Prosecutors eventually accused Lopez of joining in the rape ? even suggesting he was "the most brutal" of the group. By 1991, they had dropped the more serious charges as part of a plea bargain, as the New York Times reported at the time. (The deal was offered as prosecutors conceded that "their case was falling apart," due largely to witnesses' refusal to testify against Lopez, the Times reported.)

Lopez, now 48, was sentenced to one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years in prison on the robbery charge.

But several other teenagers who said Lopez had attacked both joggers later recanted those statements ? with one saying he had been given Lopez's name by detectives. Indeed, a man who later admitted to initiating the attack on the male jogger said during a 2013 deposition that Lopez had not been there, saying he had previously accused others of joining the attack "because he was pressured and coerced by law enforcement," Bragg's office said.

One teenage witness to the 1989 attacks, who was ultimately not charged, said at the time that Lopez had punched the male jogger. In 2013, the same man said in a sworn deposition that the claim was untrue.

"I don't recall Steven punching anyone," he said. "I was 15 years old and I wanted to get out of there so I signed it. Why not? I don?t even think I read this properly."

Another teenage defendant questioned in the 1989 attacks said years later that he had "chose[n] Steven as the sacrificial lamb," according to Bragg's office.

"Mr. Lopez was charged and pleaded guilty in the face of false statements, unreliable forensic analysis and immense external pressure," Bragg said in a courtroom on Monday.

The decision to vacate Lopez's conviction hinged in part on a hair sample found on Lopez's clothing, which investigators initially said may have belonged to the rape victim ? a finding that prosecutors now say was unreliable.

Bragg also cited the recanted statements from other young men at the time.

Unlike the other teens, who became known as the Central Park Five, Lopez did not receive any part of the $41 million settlement that New York City gave the defendants in 2014. He was not featured, either, in the 2012 Ken Burns documentary about the case or the 2019 Netflix drama series devoted to it, according to the Times.

But Lopez was still a victim of the sensationalized media climate that surrounded the case, Bragg's office argues ? pointing to comments in one local newspaper that called the defendants "a wolf pack" and compared them to "beasts."

Lopez's exoneration comes only after he approached the Manhattan D.A.'s office in early 2021, asking for his conviction to be reviewed, prosecutors said Monday. The re-investigation included a review of "voluminous case materials" and two interviews with Lopez.