Central Park ‘sixth man’ in clear

A LONG overlooked co-defendant of the Central Park Five, a group of teenagers who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman out jogging in 1989 based on false confessions, is due to be exonerated of a related conviction in a New York court.

Steven Lopez was 15 when he was named in the indictment along with other black and Latino teenagers for the night-time rape and attempted murder of Trisha Meili, an investment banker whose horrific injuries became the subject of sensationalist media coverage.

Lopez later pleaded guilty to robbing a male jogger that same night in a deal with prosecutors that saw the charges alleging his involvement in the attack on Meili dropped, and was sentenced to between one and a half and four and a half years in a state prison.

Alvin Bragg, Manhattan District Attorney, said he would move to vacate Lopez’s guilty plea yesterday.