Spin-off topic from another thread….

After being detained for questioning on suspicion of committing violent rampages (aka “wilding”) in Central Park, several teenagers implicated themselves and each other of a brutal sexual assault before police even were aware a rape had occurred. 4 out of 5 of the so-called Central Park 5 indeed admitted to the sexual assault of the so-called Central Park jogger and were convicted based on those confessions.

These confessions were captured on video tape and are chilling:

quote:
The video footage of McCray, Richardson, Santana, and Wise was damning indeed. Some excerpts:

Antron McCray: “We charged her. We got her on the ground. Everybody started hitting her and stuff. She was on the ground. Everybody stomping and everything. Then we got, each — I grabbed one arm, some other kid grabbed one arm, and we grabbed her legs and stuff. Then we all took turns getting on her, getting on top of her.”

Kevin Richardson: “Raymond [Santana] had her arms, and Steve [Lopez, who accepted a plea bargain rather than face trial] had her legs. He spread it out. And Antron [McCray] got on top, took her panties off.”

Raymond Santana: “He was smacking her. He was saying, ‘Shut up, bitch!’ Just smacking her…. I was grabbing the lady’s tits.”

Kharey Wise: “This was my first rape.”

Again, police were not even aware that a rape had occurred since these confessions were given while the victim was in a coma on life-support. It was only in the years after their convictions that they claimed their confessions had been coerced.

The convictions were only overturned after a serial rapist claimed he committed the rape alone. Yet the victim always has maintained she was sexually assaulted by multiple assailants.

And evidence disputes the claim that only one person committed the violent attack. The doctors who treated the victim indeed testified that the physical trauma on her body was consistent with an attack by multiple assistants.

'I so wish the case hadn't been settled': 1989 Central Park jogger believes more than 1 person attacked her New York City settled with the Central Park Five for $41 million….

In 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City finally settled with the Central Park Five, a group of teenagers who were convicted and later exonerated in connection with the rape and brutal assault on a jogger.

But the settlement remains a decision that Trisha Meili -- the jogger in that horrific attack -- says the city should not have made. And the police and prosecutors involved in the case agree.

"I so wish the case hadn't been settled," Meili told ABC News' "20/20" in January. "I wish that it had gone to court because there's a lot of information that's now being released that I'm seeing for the first time…"

A group of teens take over Central Park

On the night of April 19, 1989, she worked until 8 p.m. and then headed to her home on the East Side. Moments after she had returned home, she was back outside, running toward Central Park.

But at the same time that she was headed out for her run, police were scrambling to respond to calls about 30 to 40 teens who were harassing people in the park.

"People were punched in the face and pulled off their bicycles and robbed of their watches. I mean, it was kind of a crazy series of incidents that took place in the park," recalled former newspaper columnist Ken Auletta.

A little before midnight, her body was found by two men, in a ravine about 50 feet from the 102nd Street cross path.

"Trish Meili [was] not conscious, barely, barely alive," said Linda Fairstein, who was chief of the district attorney's office at the time.

Meili, who had been raped and brutally beaten, was taken to a hospital. She had no memory of what happened.

"She had blunt trauma," said surgeon Dr. Bob Kurtz, who treated Meili. "They didn’t know if she would survive. She looked like a little waif in the bed. No one knew who she was yet."

Plastic surgeon Dr. Jane Haher told ABC News' "20/20" that she's never forgotten that day.

"I have seen traumatized patients many, many times. But I have never seen somebody, like, destroyed," Haher said. "Her body was just so swollen -- unrecognizable, really."

The police question five teens

While Meili was in the hospital, with doctors unsure if she would live or die, New York authorities were charging five teenagers who had been held in connection with the Central Park assaults with her attack. The teens -- Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Antron McCray -- eventually became known as the "Central Park Five."

Prosecutors had no DNA and little evidence that matched the teenagers to the crime, the attack, or the scene. But each teenager -- except for Salaam -- had made statements or open confessions about Meili’s attack, implicating themselves or each other.

Meili was in a coma for about a week in the hospital before she finally opened her eyes. Meili said she watched some of the videotapes of the teens' statements and confessions.

"It is very, very hard watching someone describe how people beat me, how people were trying to stop my screaming by beating my face," she said.

When the first trial began in August 1990 against Salaam, Santana and McCray, Meili agreed to testify. "I remember I was very nervous," she said. "I thought, 'I know I have no memory but I wanted people to know the condition that I had been in.'"

After 10 days of deliberations, Salaam, Santana and McCray, all 16 years old at the time, were convicted of rape, assault and robbery in the attack on Meili. After a separate trial, in December 1990, Wise was found guilty of sexual abuse, first degree assault and riot. Richardson was also found guilty on all charges.

McCray, Richardson, Santana and Salaam got five to 10 years in prison as juveniles. Wise was sentenced to five to 15 as an adult.

A serial rapist comes forward

With the trials over, Meili -- believing her attackers were behind bars -- ran the New York City Marathon in 1995.

In 2002, 13 years after the Central Park attack and with four of the Central Park Five out of prison, convicted serial rapist Matias Reyes came forward and said he was Meili's sole attacker.

The Central Park Five's convictions are vacated

"I always knew that there was at least one more person involved because there was unidentified DNA," Meili said. "So when I heard the news that there was an additional person found whose DNA matched, that wasn't a tremendous surprise. But when he said that he and he alone had done it, that's when some of the turmoil started, wondering 'Well, how can that be?'"

Meili and doctors Kurtz and Haher said there was medical evidence to support the charge that more than one person was responsible for her attack. Her injuries were different from what Reyes claimed as the sole attacker, Meili said.

"There were hand prints pressed into her skin that looked red in outline," Kurtz said. Haher said the hand prints were of different sizes as well.

In 2002, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau withdrew all charges against the Central Park Five, and their convictions were vacated. Wise, who was still in prison at the time, was released early. The group sued in 2003 and after a decade-long standstill, the lawsuit was settled for $41 million.

"The five of them went to Central Park to beat up people and they ended up with millions of dollars and they’re heroes and civil rights icons," Reynolds said. "It’s appalling."