MIDTOWN — Donald Trump still thinks the exonerated Central Park Five are guilty, the Republican presidential candidate told CNN.
"They admitted they were guilty," Trump told the network Thursday. "The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same."
The five teenagers, who were convicted of raping and beating a woman jogging in Central Park in 1989, were later exonerated by DNA evidence. The teens also said their confessions to the crime back then had been coerced by the police.
The case riveted and heightened racial tensions in the city with tales of packs of black and Hispanic teens "wilding" in the park attacking innocent people.
In 2014, the city reached a $41 million settlement with the five men. Trump blasted the settlement at the time, calling it a "disgrace," according to the Daily News.
In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in the News calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty based on the case.
Another convicted rapist admitted to the attack in 2002 and his DNA was later matched to semen found on the victim.
The Central Park Five convictions were vacated in 2002.
