Did Trump's Newspaper Ad Help Convict The Central Park Five?

Before he was falling asleep in important meetings. Before he was threatening to destroy democracy with corruption so egregious it makes Nixon look innocent. Even before he uttered the words "you're fired" on national TV, Donald Trump was straddling the line between legal and illegal.

It's no secret that he always showed contempt for the courts. If a ruling or jury did not go his way, he would throw money at appeals until it did. He believed, and may still hold this thought, that having money put him above the law.

Another thing that is no secret is that Trump is a racist. The streets of Manhattan are filled with stories about how he treated people of color that were tenants in his building, employees, or contestants on his reality show. Whatever he may claim, he has issues with anyone who is non-white, non-straight, non-man.

Defenders will say that of course he's not racist. He just wants things done legally. Except nothing he does has been legal. Those people need to be reminded that he ran crying to the Supreme Court because he was facing consequences for his actions. He demanded immunity because he broke the law and knew he had done so.

Not to mention how he's pardoned those who participated in the January 6 insurrection, those who have committed heinous crimes like sexual assault and worse, and of course anyone who has sucked up to him enough.

And the vast majority of them were white.

The take away is that if you're white and MAGA, the law does not apply to you. At least for as long as Trump is in office. But if a person of color is accused of a crime, they are automatically guilty without question or a trial.

And there is a very famous example of this belief from him.

That case is widely known as the Central Park Five. It revolved around the rape and severe beating of Trisha Meili on April 19, 1989. It was during a time when New York, specifically Manhattan, was known as the crime capital of the world.

On that night specifically, dozens of teenagers entered Central Park. Their goal was to beat and mug as many people as possible. And there were dozens of police filings from that night.

Steven Jones, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise were originally charged in the Meili case. But Jones would see the charges dropped against him when he confessed to a different assault.

The remaining five teens faced the charges and scrutiny from many in the city. Trump took out a full-page ad in several newspapers in New York City calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

There had been no trial or convictions of the Central Park Five at that point.

Though, all five would be found guilty in December 1990. The convictions came from coerced confessions and nothing else. No physical evidence nor victim identification.

Trisha Meili had been unable to identify her attacker due to the head trauma and memory loss sustained during the attack.

But the convictions were not the end of the story. 12 years later, in 2002, the Central Park Five were exonerated. It turned out that serial rapist Matias Reyes was the culprit. He confessed and produced physical evidence that he was the one who did it.

A malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress lawsuit was settled between New York City and the Central Park Five.

Trump would have had these teens killed by the government for a crime they did not commit.

So, the question remains, did Trump's newspaper ad help aid in the conviction of the Central Park Five? The short answer would be no. It was not presented as evidence or included in any court documentation at all.

But there is an argument to be made that Trump tainted the jury pool. He knew that most people would not follow the facts and that saying they did it would lead to a conviction.

And no matter how it is sliced, Trump was one of the most influential people in Manhattan, if not the entire United States. If he believed they were guilty and made public statements to that effect, it is likely that potential jurors heard and made up their minds.

His taking out that ad was his way of ensuring that the Central Park Five were deemed guilty before any evidence could be heard. He decoded that they should be punished, even as he did not have all of the facts.

However, Trump alone is not responsible for the convictions.

The officers who coerced the young men to confess, the prosecutors who ran with it, and the judge who allowed them to be used also played a part. This was a failure of the justice system all the way around.

It would be easy to blame one person. One known corrupt racist that had an agenda all his own. But it would also be disingenuous to lay the blame, even if it is gold plated, at Trump's feet.

Better systems were and are needed to protect minority groups from a justice system that would rather see them locked up than rehabilitated or finding the truth.