Cleared in park rape, he’s running for Sen.
Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park 5 exonerated in the headline-grabbing, racially-polarizing rape of a white Manhattan jogger, is running for public office, sources close to his campaign said Friday.
Nearly 20 years after a judge vacated convictions against him and four of his buddies in one of the most sensational criminal justice cases in city history, Salaam has told associates that he is running to fill the seat being vacated by Harlem state Sen. Brian Benjamin, who was nominated last week to be New York’s next lieutenant governor.
Associates said Salaam, 47, plans to focus, in part, on issues that made his name synonymous with wrongful conviction: criminal justice and prison reform, police brutality and the abolition of juvenile solitary confinement.
He has worked as an activist, author and motivational speaker.
Salaam has his work cut out for him. Although Benjamin, a Democrat, has yet to officially vacate the seat, other likely candidates for the post include state
Assembly members Al Taylor and Inez Dickens, who represent adjoining parts of the 30th Senate district.
The district includes Harlem, East Harlem and the Upper West Side.
Benjamin is not expected to vacate the seat until after Labor Day. After he’s gone a special election will be scheduled, and will likely coincide with races taking place in November, officials said.
Salaam could not be reached for comment.
Cops and critics argued that the defendants were part of a group of marauders who menaced people in the park — wilding was the term widely used — robbing, beating and harassing joggers, walkers and people sitting on benches.
All five suspects were convicted, each spending between seven and 13 years in prison.
Salaam served nearly seven years in jail on rape and robbery charges., and had already been free five years when his conviction was vacated along with the others.
“The overwhelming feeling that I have towards the police and prosecutors is that they knew that we had not done this crime,” Salaam told NPR earlier this year. “They knew it, but yet they chose to move forward. They built their careers off of our backs. And the law of karma caught up to them.”
Salaam, Kharey Wise, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana all had their convictions overturned in 2002 after a prison inmate, Matias Reyes, said he was the one who raped the jogger, and DNA evidence backed his confession.
The five men were awarded a $41 million settlement from the city in 2014, but not without protests from detractors, including future president, Donald Trump, who had bought ads in four of the city’s newspapers, including the Daily News, in the aftermath of the incident, calling for the death penalty.
“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE,” the ad screamed in capital letters.
Salaam later earned his GED while incarcerated and also earned an associate’s degree from Dutchess Community College. He continued his education at Hunter College and, in 2016, received a lifetime achievement award from President Barack Obama.
Yusef and the others have been profiled in award-winning films, including “The Central Park Five” documentary from Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon and most recently the Emmy award-winning Netflix limited series “When They See Us,” written and directed by Ava DuVernay.
He also wrote a book entitled, “Better, Not Bitter: Living On Purpose In The Pursuit Of Racial Justice.”