title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords initially was placed in an induced coma to allow her brain to rest. She was able to respond to simple commands when periodically awakened, but was unable to speak as she was on a ventilator. Nancy Pelosi said Giffords' husband Mark Kelly acknowledged that there is a "rough road ahead" for his wife's recovery, but was encouraged by her responsiveness, which included the ability to signal with her hand and move both arms. U.S. Army neurologist Geoffrey Ling of the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, was sent to Tucson to consult on Giffords' condition. Ling stated, "Her prognosis for maintaining the function that she has is very good. It's over 50 percent." On January 11, neurosurgeon G. Michael Lemole Jr. said that Giffords' sedation had been reduced and that she could breathe on her own. On January 12, President Barack Obama visited Giffords at the medical center and publicly stated in an evening memorial ceremony that she had "opened her eyes for the first time" that day. Shortly after the shootings, some questions were raised by the media as to whether Giffords could be removed from office under a state law that allows a public office to be declared vacant if the officeholder is absent for three months, but a spokesperson for the Arizona secretary of state said the statute "doesn't apply to federal offices" and was, therefore, not relevant.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: As Giffords' status improved, by mid-January she began simple physical therapy, including sitting up with the assistance of hospital staff and moving her legs upon command. On January 15, surgeons performed a tracheotomy, replacing the ventilator tube with a smaller one inserted through Giffords' throat to assist independent breathing. Ophthalmologist Lynn Polonski surgically repaired Giffords' damaged eye socket, with additional reconstructive surgery to follow. Giffords' condition improved from "critical" to "serious" on January 17, and to "good" on January 25. She was transferred on January 21 to the Memorial Hermann Medical Center in Houston, Texas, where she subsequently moved to the TIRR Memorial Hermann to undergo a program of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. Medical experts' initial assessment in January was that Giffords' recovery could take from several months to more than one year. Upon her arrival in Houston, her doctors were optimistic, saying she has "great rehabilitation potential".


title: Gabby Giffords

text: On March 12, 2011, Giffords' husband informed her that six other people had been killed in the attack on her, but he did not identify who they were until months later. In late April, Giffords' doctors reported that her physical, cognitive, and language production abilities had improved significantly, placing her in the top 5 percent of patients recovering from similar injuries. She was walking under supervision with perfect control of her left arm and leg, and able to write with her left hand. She was able to read and understand, and spoke in short phrases. With longer efforts, she was able to produce more complex sentences.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: From early in her recovery, Giffords' husband had expressed confidence that she would be able to travel to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, to witness the launch of his final Space Shuttle mission, STS-134, which was scheduled for April 2011. On April 25, Giffords' doctors cleared her for travel to Florida for the launch, scheduled for April 29. She went to Florida to watch from a private family area with no public appearance or photography. The launch of STS-134 was delayed due to mechanical problems, and Giffords and Kelly returned to Houston after meeting with President Obama, who had also planned to see the launch with his family at Kennedy Space Center (KSC).


title: Gabby Giffords

text: After continuing her rehabilitation therapy in Houston, Giffords returned to KSC for her husband's launch on May 16, 2011. Kelly wore his wife's wedding ring into space, which she had exchanged for his.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords underwent cranioplasty surgery on May 18, 2011, to replace the part of her skull that had been removed in January to permit her brain to swell after the gunshot to her head. Surgeons replaced the bone with a piece of molded hard plastic, fixed with tiny screws. They expected that her skull would eventually fuse with the porous plastic. From that point, Giffords no longer needed to wear the helmet that she had been wearing to protect her brain from further injury. On June 9, 2011, her aide Pia Carusone announced that while Giffords' comprehension appeared to be "close to normal, if not normal", she was not yet using complete sentences. On June 12, two photos of Giffords taken on May 17 were released, the first since the shooting. On June 15, Giffords was released from the hospital to return home, where she continued speech, music, physical and occupational therapy. Having learned the French horn as a child, she picked it up again as part of her music therapy and in August 2020 spoke about that experience in a speech endorsing Joe Biden's presidential bid.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: On August 1, 2011, she made her return to the House floor to vote in favor of raising the debt limit ceiling. She was met with a standing ovation and accolades from her fellow members of Congress. A Giffords spokesman, Mark Kimble, stated in August 2011 that the congresswoman was walking without a cane and was writing left-handed, as she did not have full use of her right side. On October 6, Giffords traveled to Washington for her husband's retirement ceremony, where she presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross medal. She returned to her husband's Texas home. On October 25, 2011, she travelled to Asheville, North Carolina, for intensive rehabilitation treatments, ending November 4. In Kelly's memoir, "Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope", released in November 2011, he reported that Giffords would return to Congress. , she continued to struggle with language and had lost fifty percent of her vision in both eyes.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: On January 22, 2012, Giffords announced in a video statement that she intended to resign her seat so that she could focus on her recovery. She attended President Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address on January 24, and formally submitted her resignation on January 25. Appearing on the floor of the House, after the last bill she sponsored was brought to a vote and unanimously passed, Giffords was lauded by members of Congress and the majority and minority leaders who spoke in tribute to her strength and accomplishment in an unusual farewell ceremony. Her letter of resignation was read on her behalf by her close friend and fellow Democratic representative, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: A joint memoir by Giffords and her husband, "Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope", with co-author Jeffrey Zaslow, was published on November 15, 2011. Giffords and Kelly were interviewed by ABC's Diane Sawyer in their first joint interview since the shooting, which aired on a special edition of "20/20" on November 14, 2011, in conjunction with the book's publication.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords has made appearances at the three Democratic National Conventions held since she left congress. On September 6, 2012, Giffords led the Pledge of Allegiance at that evening's meeting of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Giffords delivered a speech in support of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. For the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Giffords delivered a speech supporting presidential nominee Joe Biden and urging action on gun control.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: After her shooting, Giffords became an advocate for anti-gun-violence causes. In 2013, shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Giffords and her husband founded the nonprofit and super PAC Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS) to support pro-gun control candidates. In 2017 the organization was reorganized, becoming Giffords.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: In January 2013, Giffords still had difficulty speaking and walking, and her right arm was paralyzed. She continued to undergo speech and physical therapy.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: On January 8, 2014, Giffords marked the third anniversary of the shooting by going skydiving. Giffords said on an interview with the "Today" show, "Oh, wonderful sky. Gorgeous mountain. Blue skies. I like a lot. A lot of fun. Peaceful, so peaceful."


title: Gabby Giffords

text: On July 1, 2022, the White House announced that Giffords would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, she was awarded it on July 7, 2022.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: On October 13, 2022, she was named the Grand Marshal of the 2023 Rose Parade and will preside over the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords married U.S. Navy captain and NASA astronaut Mark Kelly on November 10, 2007. Kelly was the Space Shuttle's pilot on the STS-108 and STS-121 missions, was the commander of STS-124 and STS-134, and became a U.S. Senator for Arizona in 2020.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords is a former member of the Arizona regional board of the Anti-Defamation League. After Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, Giffords spent time as a volunteer in Houston, Texas, in relief efforts for hurricane victims. She wrote about her experience in the "Tucson Citizen".


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords is an avid reader, and was featured on NPR's "Weekend Edition" on July 9, 2006, talking about her love of books. She was periodically interviewed in 2007 together with Illinois Republican Peter Roskam on NPR's "All Things Considered". The series focused on their experiences as freshman members of the 110th Congress.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords voted against President Bush's Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. Giffords was one of 60 lawmakers who voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 during its first House vote before switching to a yes vote in its second House vote, and she voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords argues that Americans are competing on a global level and that this competition starts in the classroom. She is a critic of the No Child Left Behind law, viewing it as an unfunded federal mandate. She supports public schools and their improved efficiency.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords strongly supports renewable energy, in particular solar energy, as a top public policy priority.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: In September 2007, she published a report titled: "The Community Solar Energy Initiative, Solar Energy in Southern Arizona", observing that Arizona has enough sunshine to power the entire United States. It reviews current energy usage and discusses how to increase the production of solar electricity. On August 1, 2008, she wrote to congressional leaders regarding tax credits that were set to expire, saying that failure to extend the scheme would be extremely harmful to the renewable energy industry "just as it is beginning to take off".


title: Gabby Giffords

text: During Gifford's tenure in the House, Arizona's 8th Congressional District was one of ten in the country bordering Mexico. Giffords has stated that the Arizona SB 1070 legislation is a "clear calling that the federal government needs to do a better job" and says that she hopes the legislation acts as a wake-up call to the federal government. However, she stopped short of supporting the law itself, saying that it "does nothing to secure our border" and that it "stands in direct contradiction to our past and, as a result, threatens our future". She also claimed that SB1070 kept Arizona from attracting students and businesses.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: On August 31, 2010, Giffords praised the arrival of National Guard troops on the border: "Arizonans have waited a long time for the deployment of the National Guard in our state. Their arrival represents a renewed national commitment to protecting our border communities from drug cartels and smugglers."


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords worked to secure passage of the August 2010 bill to fund more Border Patrol agents and surveillance technology for Arizona's border with Mexico. The legislation passed the House of Representatives only to be sent back by the U.S. Senate with reduced funding. Ultimately a $600-million bill was passed and signed into law. The bill was over $100 million less than Giffords fought for, but she said, "This funding signals a stronger federal commitment to protect those Americans who live and work near the border."


title: Gabby Giffords

text: In 2008, Giffords introduced legislation that would have increased the cap on the H-1B visa from 65,000 per year to 130,000 per year. If that were not sufficient, according to her legislation, the cap would have been increased to 180,000 per year. The bill would have allowed, at most, 50% of employees at any given company with at least 50 employees to be H-1B guest workers. Giffords said the bill would help high-tech companies in southern Arizona, some of which rely on H-1B employees. However, Giffords' bill was never voted on by the House of Representatives.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: In 2008, before being shot, Giffords opposed Washington, D.C. prohibitions on possession of handguns in the home and having usable firearms there, signing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to support its overturn.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: In January 2013, Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly started a political action committee called Americans for Responsible Solutions whose mission is to promote gun-control legislation with elected officials and the general public. The couple supports "keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people like criminals, terrorists, and the mentally ill".


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Other proposals from Giffords and Kelly include limiting the sale of certain magazines, limiting the sale of assault weapons, and stopping gun trafficking.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Giffords was a surprise witness at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence on January 30, 2013. In a halting voice, she called for Congress to pass tougher laws on guns, saying "too many children are dying." Giffords is right-handed; her speech therapist had to write out her statement for her since her right arm was paralyzed in the shooting.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: In 2017, after the Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 and injured 546, she implored lawmakers to take action, saying she "knows the horror of gun violence all too well".


title: Gabby Giffords

text: In 2020 she spoke on the third night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, urging action on gun control. She worked with a speech therapist for months in preparation for the speech, and also performed "America" on the French horn, an instrument she had played as a teen, as a symbol of her recovery.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: It was announced by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, on February 10, 2012, that the next U.S. Navy littoral combat ship would be named . Giffords, still recovering from injuries sustained in the 2011 assassination attempt, attended the ship's keel-laying ceremony and etched her initials into a plate welded into the ship.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: USS "Gabrielle Giffords" was christened at the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, on June 13, 2015. Giffords attended the christening ceremony, along with Second Lady of the United States Jill Biden, who served as the ship's sponsor. The ship was commissioned on June 12, 2017, at Port of Galveston, Texas.


title: Gabby Giffords

text: Some commentators have noted that several ships in the U.S. Navy, including , , , , , and were named for prominent politicians who were still alive at the time of the naming. A subsequent Navy report on the naming noted that Secretary Mabus considered honoring Giffords and other victims of the Tucson shooting by naming LCS-10 after the city of Tucson, consistent with current practice of naming littoral combat ships for U.S. cities, but this was not possible because , an active , currently bears the name.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Errol Spence Jr. (born March 3, 1990) is an American professional boxer. He is currently a unified welterweight world champion, having held the IBF title since May 2017, the WBC title since September 2019, and the WBA (Super) since April 2022. As an amateur in the welterweight division, he won three consecutive United States national championships and represented the U.S. at the 2012 Olympics, where he reached the quarter-finals. In 2015, Spence was named Prospect of the Year by ESPN.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: As of May 2022, Spence is ranked as the world's first best active boxer, pound for pound, by ESPN, fourth by "The Ring" magazine, Boxing Writers Association of America and TBRB, and fifth by BoxRec. He is also ranked as the world's best active welterweight by "The Ring," and TBRB, and second by BoxRec, and ESPN. His knockout-to-win ratio stands at 78%.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: In 2009, Spence won the U.S. National Golden Gloves, and also won three consecutive national amateur welterweight championships from 2009 to 2011, all in the welterweight division. Spence reached the quarter-finals at the 2011 World Championships, losing to Serik Sapiyev.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence lost in the quarter finals of the 2012 London Olympics to Andrey Zamkovoy and turned professional shortly afterwards.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On 9 November 2012, a 22 year old Spence made his professional debut at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California in a scheduled 4 round bout against 19 year old Jonathan Garcia. Spence knocked Garcia down and out in the 3rd round. In December 2012, Spence knocked out Richard Andrews at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California, which was part of undercard for Amir Khan's comeback fight against Carlos Molina.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence fought eight times in 2013, being victorious in all of them, winning six inside the distance. He was taken the distance in an eight-round bout in October by Emmanuel Lartei Lartey. The fight was rather one-sided, with all judges scoring the fight 79–73 in favor of Spence. By the end of 2013, Spence had won all of his 10 professional fights, 8 of them by way of knockout.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence made his Showtime television debut on 27 June 2014 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas in a 10-round fight against Ronald Cruz. Spence was taken the distance and won a shutout unanimous decision.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On 13 December 2014, Spence beat Javier Castro by TKO in the 5th round at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On 11 April 2015, Spence defeated Samuel Vargas by TKO in Round 4 of 10 in a "Premier Boxing Champions" fight card at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, bringing his record to 16–0. On May 16, it was announced that Spence would feature on the undercard of Shawn Porter vs. Adrien Broner on June 20 at the MGM Grand Arena. Spence defeated Phil Lo Greco (26-1, 14 KOs) via 3rd-round TKO. Spence was originally scheduled to fight Roberto García. García backed out of the fight three days before the card due to weight issues. Spence landed 73 of 142 punched thrown (51%) and Lo Greco landed 19 of 132 (14%).


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence next fought on the undercard of Stevenson-Karpency against Chris van Heerden at the Ricoh Coliseum. The referee stopped the fight in round 8, after Spence knocked down van Heerden twice in round 7.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: In October 2015 it was announced that Spence would fight at The Bomb Factory in Dallas on November 28 against Mexican boxer Alejandro Barrera (28-2, 18 KOs). Spence defeated Barrera via 5th-round TKO. This was an IBF eliminator for the number 2 spot in their welterweight contender rankings. Spence was ahead on all three judges scorecards (40-36, 3 times).


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On 10 March 2016, it was announced that Spence would fight former light welterweight titlist Chris Algieri at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on 16 April, his biggest fight to date. The fight was scheduled for 10 rounds. In front of a pro-Algieri 7,628 crowd, Spence became the first boxer to stop Algieri. This was Spence's seventh straight knockout. The end came when Spence delivered a left hook to Algieri's face. The hard shot sent Algieri straight to the canvas and referee Benjy Esteves waived the count. After the bout, Spence said "Kell Brook knows what time it is. We got to get in the ring and fight.". IBF later stated that Spence must have a final eliminator before he is declared mandatory challenger. . For the fight, Spence earned $225,000 whilst Algieri earned $325,000. CompuBox punch statistics showed that Spence landed 96 of 311 punches (31%), whereas Algieri landed 36 of 114 thrown (32%). The fight averaged 1.482 million viewers on NBC.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On 16 May 2016, Spence denied that his team turned down a fight against Brook, which had been previously insinuated by Eddie Hearn, Brook's promoter. Spence said that the IBF had ordered him to fight their #3 contender Konstantin Ponomarev in order to become the mandatory challenger to Brook. Although there were no agreements to fight, on June 9, Ponomarev injured his hand, forcing him out of the eliminator. Instead, it was confirmed that Spence Jr. would fight IBF #7 Leonard Bundu (33-1-2, 12 KOs) in the eliminator on August 21 at the Ford Amphitheater. The fight would be aired on a Sunday night edition of "Premier Boxing Champions" on NBC.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence focused on breaking down Bundu from the start. After five one-sided rounds, Spence backed Bundu against the ropes and connected with an uppercut that dropped Bundu. Referee Johnny Callas waved off the fight without starting a count. After the fight, Spence Jr. reiterated his desire of becoming IBF World champion stating, "I definitely want my shot at Kell Brook and his title, I want him next. If he vacates or gets stripped, then I'll fight for his vacant title. I've paid my dues." For the fight, Spence received $250,000 compared to Bundu's $30,000 purse. The fight drew 4.8 million viewers on NBC and peaked at 6.34 million. This was the highest TV audience for boxing in over 10 years in the United States.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: In January 2017, IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook and his team were in talks with Amir Khan over a potential fight, whilst also keeping the mandatory fight with Spence as second choice. During negotiations, Khan urged Brook to fight Spence first and eventually talks broke down between Brook and Khan. Brook's promoter Eddie Hearn mentioned talks were already ongoing with Spence's manager Al Haymon for a fight to take place possibly in the UK in May. Hearn received an extension from the IBF for negotiations between himself and TGB Promotions boss Tom Brown, as they were progressing. The purse bid for the fight was set for 7 February by the IBF. On February 1, Hearn claimed that Brook will be keeping his title and make the defense against Spence and that he had reached out to Spence's team, to no reply. He assumed that they wanted the fight to go to purse bids. Spence said that he had no problem travelling to the UK for the fight, regardless of negotiations. With a deal close to being reached a day before the purse bids, the IBF granted a week extension, pushing the purse bid back 7 days. On February 13, a deal was reached for the fight to take place in Sheffield on 20 May 2017. At a press conference at Bramall Lane, Sheffield on March 22, the fight was officially announced to take place on May 27, 2017, live on Sky Box Office in the UK and Showtime in the US.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: In front of 27,000 fans, Spence dropped and eventually stopped Brook to win the IBF welterweight title after 11 rounds. In a fight where mostly power shots were landed, Spence threw combinations to the head and to the body, gradually wearing down Brook. Brook did well working the counter and landed his own shots to the body. In round 10, Spence cornered Brook against the ropes and unloaded some heavy power shots, which caused Brook to take a knee. In round 11, Brook motioned many times that he couldn't see through his left eye and voluntarily took a knee. The referee started the 10 count, which Brook was unable to beat, giving him back-to-back defeats and his first as a welterweight. At the time of stoppage, all three judges had Spence ahead on their scorecards (97-92, 96–93, 95–94). Although he won the fight, Spence admitted it was not his best performance, "I give myself a B−. I was a little bit off with my offense and defense, but I give Kell a lot of credit. This is what true champions do. You go anywhere to fight." Spence landed 246 of 633 punches thrown (39%) while Brook landed 136 of 442 (31%). The fight was broadcast in the afternoon in the US on Showtime and averaged 291,000 viewers, peaking at 337,000 viewers. These were considered low numbers, even for an afternoon showing, possibly due to it being a holiday weekend. For the fight, Spence earned around £1 million and Brook earned a guaranteed £3 million.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On 3 October 2017, Lamont Peterson (35-3-1, 17 KOs) vacated his WBA (Regular) title in hopes of challenging Spence for the latter's IBF title. Dan Rafael revealed that Spence was promised a $3.5 million purse from his manager Al Haymon for his next fight. On October 13, it was reported that terms would be finalised within a week. The fight was tentatively scheduled for Spence's 28th birthday, 13 January 2018, against Peterson. The event would be aired on Showtime. Peterson last saw action when he dethroned David Avanesyan in February 2017. The fight was confirmed on 14 October, with Barclays Center the front-runner to land the fight. At a presser, Spence spoke fondly of Peterson, "He's somebody I looked up to in the amateurs and I learned a lot from. I had a training camp with him at the Olympic training center. So he's a guy I really look up to. He's one of my favorite fighters. He'll fight anybody. I've never known him to say no to a fight. I'm looking forward to it. He's got true grit. He's a real fighter. He's a guy who gives it his all and has a big heart." On November 5, it was reported the fight was confirmed to take place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on January 20, 2018.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On fight night, in front of 12,107 fans, Spence broke Peterson down mentally and physically eventually forcing Peterson's trainer Barry Hunter to stop the fight a second into round 8. Peterson was dropped in round 5 from a left hand by Spence. Peterson beat the count and looked unsteady, surviving the round. Peterson took a lot of punishment, but managed to fire back some offence of his own before the round ended. Peterson's face looked swollen and his eyes were puffy from Spence's hard shots. Spence also worked the body from the opening bell. After round 6, Peterson knew he was behind on the scorecards and indicated to his trainer, who said he would give him a few more rounds. In the post-fight interviews, Spence said, "I want to thank Lamont. A lot guys turned down the fight, and he took like a real warrior, and I commend him for that. My coach [Derrick James] came with a great game plan, and I just followed through with it. Keep my range, keep my composure." Spence admitted he would need to work on his defence a little. When interviewer Jim Gray asked Hunter about the stoppage, he replied, "It was really hard [to stop the fight], but if you know Lamont, you know he was not going to give up. So I had to stop it. At the end of the day this is my son right here. And there's nothing more valuable than his well being. If it comes to him or winning, I pick him. I care about him." After the fight, Spence called out unified champion Keith Thurman, referring him to 'sometime'. At the time of stoppage, all three judges had their scorecards at 70-62 for Spence.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: According to CompuBox stats, Spence landed 161 of 526 punches thrown (30%), and Peterson landed only 45 of his 158 thrown (28%). For the fight, Spence had an official purse of $1.2 million and Peterson's purse was $600,000. The fight averaged 637,000 viewers and peaked at 695,000 viewers on Showtime.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On January 23, 2018, the IBF sent a letter to TGB Promotions ordering Spence to make a mandatory defence against unbeaten prospect Carlos Ocampo (22-0, 13 KOs) next. Zanfer Promotions, who promote Ocampo were also notified and were given until February 22 to reach a deal before purse bids take place. Because Ocampo was not rated in the top 2 in the IBF rankings at the time, at purse bids, he would be entitled to 15% rather than the 25% that a mandatory challenger receives. On January 24, Showtime announced that Spence would next fight on June 16 in Dallas, Texas. On February 24, according to ESPN, the IBF ordered purse bids to take place on March 6. Four days later, it was revealed that both sides had reached a deal. On April 30, an official press release confirmed that the bout would take place at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco. In front of a sellout crowd of 12,604 fans, Spence knocked Ocampo out in round 1 to retain his IBF title. In response to some body shots from Ocampo, Spence hit back with a hard left to the body that sent Ocampo to the canvas. Referee Lawrence Cole made the 10 count as Ocampo tried to get up, but was in too much pain. The time of the stoppage was at 3:00 of round 1. The knockout for Spence was his 11th consecutive stoppage since 2014. Spence stated he wanted to unify the division by going after the winner of the Shawn Porter vs. Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman and Terence Crawford. After the bout, Spence said, "I was a little disappointed. I wanted to give the crowd their money's worth. I wanted him to sustain a bit and give him some punishment, but the body shot got him and I dropped him." Spence wanted to go at least 5 rounds. According to Ocampo, it was overconfidence that caught up to him and ended his world title challenge. For the fight, Spence made $1.2 million and Ocampo was given a $75,000 purse. Numerous Cowboys players were in attendance, including quarterback Dak Prescott. The fight averaged 683,000 viewers and peaked at 726,000 viewers on Showtime, an increase from his previous bout.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On October 25, 2018, BoxingScene.com reported that negotiations between Spence and Mikey Garcia (39-0,30 KOs) were progressing, with the fight likely to take place in February 2019 on Showtime PPV. Garcia first began to call out Spence for a fight before he defeated and unified the lightweight division in July. On October 30, Garcia vacated his IBF lightweight title and the purse bid for the potential Richard Commey fight was cancelled. On November 13, PBC made an official announcement for their 2019 schedule. It was announced that the fight between Garcia and Spence would take place at the welterweight limit at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on March 16, 2019, exclusively on FOX PPV. Many fans reacted to the fight being announced. Some welcoming the fight and praising Garcia for 'daring to be great' and some fans believed that the size difference would be too much as Spence is considered a big welterweight.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On the night though, Spence completely outclassed and dominated Garcia, using his superior reach to constantly land jabs to the head and body from a distance, landing 108 over the course of the fight. Garcia tried to close the distance, but with Spence's weight and height advantage, he was able to completely dominate Garcia even in the pocket. In rounds 8 and 9, Spence landed over 100 punches in two rounds, with the majority being power shots, constantly using lead hooks and uppercuts on the increasing backing up Garcia. In total, Spence landed 345 punches to Garcia's 75. Garcia was unable to land double-digit punches in any of the twelve rounds. The scorecards on the night read 120-107 and 120–108, twice, to give Spence a perfect 12 round shutout victory. After the fight, Spence was joined in the ring by eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao. Both stated that they would love to fight each other next.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence fought two-time welterweight world champion Shawn Porter on September 28, 2019, in a unification bout with the IBF and WBC welterweight titles on the line. Porter tried to rough up Spence from the get go, knowing Spence is the superior boxer, which made for an intriguing and an action-packed fight. Spence knocked Porter down in the eleventh round en route to a split decision victory, with the judges scoring it 116–111, 116–111, 112–115. It was arguably a fight of the year candidate.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: In his first fight since crashing his car in October 2019, Spence fought former two-weight world champion Danny Garcia on December 5, 2020 (postponed from November 21st), on PPV at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas with Spence's IBF and WBC welterweight titles on the line. Garcia was ranked #2 by the WBC and #6 by The Ring at welterweight. He was awarded a unanimous decision victory with scores of 116–112, 116-112 and 117–111, and retained his titles.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: On May 21, 2021, eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao made the unexpected announcement on his social media that he and Spence would meet in the ring on August 21 in Las Vegas to face each other on Fox PPV. PBC and Fox confirmed the news, and it was reported that both men have signed contracts to face each other. The two men had previously already met more than two years prior on March 16, 2019, in the ring following Spence's unanimous decision victory over Mikey Garcia in Arlington, Texas, when both Pacquiao and Spence indicated they would relish the chance to fight each other. On June 23, the venue was officially announced as the T-Mobile Arena. However, on August 10, Spence was forced to pull out, after suffering a retinal tear to his left eye. He was replaced by Yordenis Ugás, with Ugás' WBA (Super) welterweight title being on the line.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: After successfully defending his title against Pacquiao, Ugás petitioned the WBA for a special permit to bypass a mandatory defense against Eimantas Stanionis in order to face Spence in a title unification bout. The petition was denied by the WBA on October 20, 2021, who stated: "...we are in special circumstances to resolve extraordinary situations, such as the champion reduction in every division to have only one champion". Accordingly, Ugás and Stanionis were given a 30-day period to negotiate the terms of their bout. As they were unable to come to terms, a purse bid was ordered for December 9, with a minimal bid of $200,000. The winning bid would be split 75/25 in favor of Ugas as the reigning titlist. On December 19, 2021, WBA President Gilberto J. Mendoza has confirmed that the Spence-Ugas was approved as Stanionis was willing to step aside. The unification bout was officially announced on February 8, 2022. It was scheduled to headline a Showtime pay per view card on April 16, which will take place at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Spence won the fight by a tenth-round technical knockout. The fight was stopped on the advice of the ringside physician, due to Ugas’ severely swollen right eye. Spence was leading on all three of the judges' scorecards at the time of the stoppage, with scores of 88–82, 88–82 and 88–83. Spence landed more total punches (216 to 96) and more power punches (192 to 77) than Ugas.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence Jr. and the WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford came to an agreement on “all material terms” for a title unification, which was expected to take place on November 19. The agreement included a bilateral rematch clause, with the winner of the bout earning the majority of the revenue in the rematch. Two months later, it was revealed by both camps that negotiations had fallen through and they would be pursuing different fights. Following this, the WBC ordered Spence Jr. to face Keith Thurman in a mandatory title defense.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Errol Spence Jr. is of Jamaican descent through his father and African-American descent through his mother. He was born in Long Island, NY, but has spent the majority of his life living in Dallas, Texas. He is the father of two daughters and a son.


title: Errol Spence Jr.

text: Spence was involved in a single-vehicle accident at 2:53 AM on October 10, 2019, in his hometown of Dallas, Texas, and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit. According to Dallas police, Spence's Ferrari 488 Spider was "traveling at a high rate of speed" and then "veered left over the center median onto the southbound lanes and flipped multiple times, ejecting the driver, who was not wearing a seatbelt." Spence sustained facial lacerations, but no broken bones. Earlier in the night, he had been drinking alcohol. He was released from the hospital six days later and was charged with a DWI, a class-B misdemeanor by the Dallas Police Department. Spence posted on Instagram "No broken bones I'm a savage!!" but deleted this post after receiving backlash, as fans stated he was lucky to be alive and noted that he could have seriously hurt others due to his drunk driving. Spence avoided jail time and received probation.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: Last Man Standing is an American sitcom created by Jack Burditt for ABC, later airing on Fox, that ran from October 11, 2011, to May 20, 2021. The show starred Tim Allen as an executive at a sporting goods store chain headquartered in Denver, Colorado, who is a married father of three daughters and a grandfather to his eldest daughter's son. "Last Man Standing" was a joint production by 21 Laps-Adelstein Productions, NestEgg Productions, and 20th Television.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: The series originally ran on ABC from 2011 to 2017 for six seasons, and entered syndication in 2015. Despite being ABC's second-highest rated sitcom for the 2016–17 season, the network declined to renew "Last Man Standing" for a seventh season amid controversy, causing fans to petition for its renewal. The following year, Fox announced it had picked up the show for a seventh season, which premiered on September 28, 2018.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: In May 2020, Fox renewed the series for a ninth and final season, which premiered on January 3, 2021. The series concluded after 194 episodes on May 20, 2021. The series runs in syndication on CMT, E! and NewsNation (formerly WGN America).


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: The series follows Mike Baxter, a senior executive and director of marketing for an outdoor sporting goods store chain based in Denver, Colorado. His home life is initially filled with his wife and three daughters (hence the "last man" in the show's title), along with a grandson. His life later extends to the young men who are married to or dating his daughters.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: "Last Man Standing" first appeared on ABC's development slate in late 2010 when writer Jack Burditt received a put pilot commitment from the network under the original title "Man Up". In January 2011, ABC green-lighted production of a pilot episode under the title "Last Days of Man". On February 18, Tim Allen, who had been attached to the potential series from the beginning, officially joined the project in the lead role. At the end of March, Nancy Travis joined the cast in the leading female role as Allen's "smart and loving wife who doesn't miss much". Soon thereafter, Héctor Elizondo came on board in a supporting role as the boss to Allen's character.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 13, 2011, ABC picked up the pilot for the 2011–2012 television season under the new title "Last Man Standing". On May 17, 2011, ABC announced that the series would air on Tuesday nights at 8 Eastern/7 Central. It debuted on October 11, 2011, with the first two episodes airing in a one-hour premiere.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On November 3, 2011, the series was picked up for a full season of twenty-two episodes. On January 12, 2012, the order was increased to twenty-four episodes.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 11, 2012, ABC renewed the series for a second season set to air in the 2012–2013 season in November.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On June 11, 2012, Tim Doyle was hired as the new showrunner of the series. Doyle was the third showrunner that the series had since it entered production. Doyle replaced Kevin Abbott, who joined the staff as the showrunner mid-way in the first season. Abbott replaced series creator Jack Burditt, who was the showrunner for the first thirteen episodes. Unlike Burditt, who is no longer credited as an executive producer, Abbott continued to serve as an executive producer while showrunning the fellow ABC sitcom "Malibu Country" starring Reba McEntire. Both "Last Man Standing" and "Malibu Country" aired as a part of ABC's Friday night lineup for the 2012–2013 primetime television season. On November 8, 2012, Abbott re-joined the "Last Man Standing" crew full-time, after a stint in rehab, and gave Nastaran Dibai full showrunning duties of "Malibu Country".


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On June 11, 2012, it was announced that Alexandra Krosney (Kristin) was let go from the show for creative reasons. Krosney was replaced by Amanda Fuller in season 2. On June 19, 2012, it was also announced that twins Luke and Evan Kruntchev, who played the role of Boyd in season 1, would not be returning; they were replaced by Flynn Morrison in season 2. The character of Boyd was also age-advanced from two years old to five years old. Jordan Masterson plays Ryan, Boyd's father, in a recurring role beginning in season 2. The role was previously played by Nick Jonas, who guest-starred in one episode in season 1.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: The second season initially received a 13-episode order. ABC announced on November 12, 2012, that an additional three scripts had been ordered. On November 27, five more episodes were ordered to bring the second-season episode total to 18.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 10, 2013, the series was renewed for a third season, which premiered on September 20, 2013, and ended on April 25, 2014, after 22 episodes.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 10, 2014, ABC renewed "Last Man Standing" for a fourth season, which premiered on October 3, 2014. Allen and Elizondo guest-starred as their "Last Man Standing" characters in a crossover episode with the fellow ABC Friday sitcom "Cristela".


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 10, 2015, ABC announced the show had been renewed for a fifth season. "Last Man Standing" had become a solid performer for the Friday night lineup at ABC, which with the help of "Shark Tank" and "20/20" has become the top network among adults 18–49 for the night. Leading off Friday night for ABC, the sitcom averaged a 1.8 rating in adults 18–49 and 8.2 million viewers overall, according to Nielsen's Live+7 estimates.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 10, 2017, ABC canceled "Last Man Standing" after six seasons, despite the series being the second-most-watched ABC sitcom during the 2016–17 season (based on Live+7 figures), with ratings remaining mostly steady during its sixth season. The cancellation caused the show's fans to question its motivation, and many took to social media to voice their displeasure and petition for another network to pick up the show. It also happened some months after lead actor Tim Allen (who is also a real-life Republican) said in an interview on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", that being a Republican in Hollywood is "like 1930s Germany. You gotta be real careful around here, you know. You'll get beat up if you don't believe what everybody believes". His comment was widely criticized, especially his comparing the treatment of Republicans in Hollywood with Nazi Germany.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: A viewer petition on the website Change.org calling for ABC to reinstate "Last Man Standing" surpassed 380,000 signatures as of May 23, 2017. In a conference call with reporters earlier in May, ABC president Channing Dungey stated, ""Last Man Standing" was a challenging one for me, because it was a steady performer. Once we made the decision not to continue with comedy on Friday, it was just kind of that's where we landed." Dungey cited studio ownership, future creative direction, ratings and viewer engagement as all factors in her decision. A year later, the petition's signatures had grown to 438,000.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 16, 2017, Allen expressed his displeasure with the cancellation, writing: "Stunned and blindsided by the network I called home for the last six years."


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 20, 2017, Howard Kurtzman, president of 20th Century Fox Television, reportedly showed some interest in his studio continuing to produce the show. "We're starting to explore that," Kurtzman said. "... Jonnie and I are hopeful that we can find another home for it." "Variety" also confirmed in an exclusive report that 20th Century Fox Television would shop the series to other networks and streaming services in hopes it would be picked up for a seventh season; another home was not quickly found, however.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: In August 2017, Allen expressed his appreciation for support by the show's fans to bring it back, and said the talent behind the show had much more to add.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On May 3, 2018, Allen wrote that a return "just might be a reality" and prompted the show's supporters to "keep it up". The same day, TVLine reported that Fox was "poised to" resurrect "Last Man Standing" for the 2018–19 TV season, adding that Tim Allen is "officially on board". "Deadline Hollywood" reported that Fox was in talks for another season, but it was "by no means a sure thing", suggesting it would depend on whether the actors could be re-signed "at reasonable salaries". On May 11, 2018, Fox TV's CEOs and chairmen announced that Fox had officially picked up "Last Man Standing" for a seventh season. Dana Walden, chairman of Fox Television Group, later hinted that the return of "Last Man Standing" was in part a response to the huge success of the "Roseanne" revival on ABC earlier in 2018: "Obviously, I think everyone took a good, hard look at the performance of "Roseanne". It did so well, and it certainly did remind us that we have a huge, iconic comedy star in our Fox family in Tim Allen."


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On July 2, Fox announced that, in addition to Allen, series regulars Nancy Travis, Amanda Fuller, Hector Elizondo, Christoph Sanders, Jordan Masterson and Jonathan Adams had all signed on to appear in the season 7 reboot. Molly Ephraim and Flynn Morrison both opted not to return for the new season, with Fox announcing their roles ("Mandy" and "Boyd", respectively) would be recast ahead of season 7. On August 6, 2018, it was announced that Molly McCook and Jet Jurgensmeyer would be taking over the roles of Mandy and Boyd, respectively. The article also stated that Kaitlyn Dever, who recently signed on to play a lead role in the 2019 Netflix miniseries "Unbelievable", would return as Eve in a recurring role only.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: For the seventh season, the show aired in the same Friday night time slot as for the last five of its six seasons on ABC; the show was renewed for an eighth season, and was moved to a new time slot, as Fox had signed an agreement to air "WWE SmackDown" on Friday nights beginning in fall 2019. When the Fox schedule was released in May 2019, "Last Man Standing" was placed in a Thursday night time slot, but only in weeks when Fox would not air NFL or XFL games. On October 24, 2019, it was announced that season eight had been scheduled to premiere on January 2, 2020, with 2 back-to-back episodes airing in an hour time slot for three weeks on January 2, 9 and 16, before returning to a one-episode-a-week time slot of 8/7c starting on January 23. On May 19, 2020, Fox renewed the series for a ninth and final season, which premiered on January 3, 2021.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, season one holds an approval rating of 14% based on 37 reviews, and the average rating is 4.14/10. The same site's critical consensus for the season reads, ""Last Man Standing" is a thoroughly middling sitcom relying on jokes that feel alternately dated or hostile." On Metacritic, the season has a weighted average score of 33 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: "The Hollywood Reporter" called the series "a predictable sitcom with a stupid premise and bad acting". "Los Angeles Times": "The jokes and plots have been efficiently constructed, but most have no traction; they slide right off you, and the characters themselves seem disconnected from one another." "Entertainment Weekly" offered a slightly more favorable review of the show: "When I look at the now-rounded softness of Tim Allen, and note once again how his sandpaper voice contrasts winningly with his hopeful eyes, it's impossible to plunge a shiv into this series."


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: Season two of the series holds an approval rating of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. "Entertainment Weekly" commented: "I think it's time the folks involved with "Last" take a closer look at "All in the Family", in which the prejudice was built around real jokes." "The A.V. Club"'s Emily VanDerWerff wrote: "The problem with "Last Man Standing"s attempts to go political is exemplified by the first scene of the season première, which remains one of the most uncomfortable scenes of television I've ever watched... doing its best to push buttons in the audience that don't need to be pushed, as if it thinks what made [Norman] Lear's sitcoms a success was the yelling or the mentions of social issues that people sometimes argued about." Philly.com wrote about season three: "The unlikely comeback vehicle for Tim Allen, "Last Man Standing" on ABC, is a thoroughly traditional, absolutely charming sitcom. [...] "Last Man" is both economical and efficient, getting excellent comic mileage out of the most marginal bit players."


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: Season seven holds an approval rating of 58% based on 12 reviews and an average rating of 5.34/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Last Man Standing" isn't the most realistic sitcom on the dial, but its idealistic representation of opposites living in harmony offers sorely needed hope during divided times." On Metacritic, the season has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: A study conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election found that it was the tenth most popular show on television with Republicans.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: ABC's series premiere of "Last Man Standing" drew a 3.5 adults 18–49 rating. That was 9% better than the 3.2 adults 18–49 rating for the series premiere of "No Ordinary Family" in the same time-slot the previous year (which was two weeks earlier in the season). Season 2 of "Last Man Standing" premiered with a 2.0, down about 38% from its first-season premiere, but up about 18% from the previous season's finale. Ratings for the eighth season on Fox declined after the series moved to Thursday nights, competing with "Young Sheldon" (CBS) and "Superstore" (NBC). Despite the strong competition, "Last Man Standing" was still the highest-rated scripted comedy on Fox for the 2019–2020 season.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: "Last Man Standing" was nominated for a 2012 People's Choice Award for "Favorite New TV Comedy", but lost to CBS's "2 Broke Girls".


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: On September 3, 2015, it was announced that ABC Family (now Freeform) had obtained syndication rights to the series, which began airing episodes on September 28, 2015. As of 2018, Freeform no longer airs the series. On May 15, 2015, it was announced that Hallmark Channel had obtained the rights to the sitcom, and they aired the series from January 2016 until December 31, 2017. On September 6, 2015, the series joined the CMT Network with a mini-marathon of episodes. The series also joined WGN America (now NewsNation) on April 30, 2018, and USA Network on October 4, 2021. Since January 2020, all nine seasons are available for streaming on Hulu.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: In the United Kingdom and Ireland, it premiered on October 9, 2012, on Sky One, which aired the first two seasons before dropping it due to low ratings; the show was bought by E4, where it premiered on March 13, 2017; Channel 4 then reran the program on Sunday mornings from July until September 2017; in 2018, 5Star and later Comedy Central UK respectively acquired the show for reruns and new episodes. Disney+, through its Star hub, acquired the show's ninth season as a Star Original.


title: Last Man Standing (American TV series)

text: In Italy, it aired on FOX, RSI LA & FOX Comedy under the name "" ("The Man of the House") from 2012 until 2021.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The Central Park jogger case (events also referenced as the Central Park Five Case) was a criminal case over the aggravated assault and rape of a white woman in Central Park in Manhattan, New York, on April 19, 1989, occurring at the same time as an unrelated string of other attacks in the park the same night.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Five black and Latino youths (known as the Central Park Five, later the Exonerated Five) were convicted of assaulting the woman, and served sentences ranging from six to twelve years. All later had their charges vacated after a prison inmate confessed to the crime.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: From the outset the case was a topic of national interest. Initially, it fueled public discourse about New York City's perceived lawlessness, criminal behavior by youths, and violence toward women. After the exonerations, the case became a prominent example of racial profiling, discrimination, and inequality in the legal system and the media. All five defendants sued the City of New York for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress; the city settled the suit in 2014 for $41 million.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: At 9:00p.m. on April 19, 1989, a group of an estimated 30 to 32 teenagers who lived in East Harlem entered Manhattan's Central Park at an entrance in Harlem, near Central Park North. Some of the group committed several attacks, assaults, and robberies against people who were either walking, biking, or jogging in the northernmost part of the park near the reservoir, and victims began to report the incidents to police.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Within the North Woods, between 102nd and 105th Street, assailants were reported attacking several bicyclists, hurling rocks at a cab, and attacking a pedestrian, whom they robbed of his food and beer and left unconscious. The teenagers roamed south along the park's East Drive and the 97th Street transverse, between 9:00 and 10:00p.m. Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9:00 and 10:00p.m.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: At least some of the group traveled farther south to the area around the reservoir, where four men who were jogging were attacked by several youths. Among the victims was John Loughlin, a 40-year-old schoolteacher, who was severely beaten and robbed between 9:40 and 9:50p.m. He was hit in the head with a pipe and a stick, briefly knocking him unconscious. At a pretrial hearing in October 1989, a police officer testified that when Loughlin was found, he was bleeding so badly that he "looked like he was dunked in a bucket of blood".


title: Central Park jogger case

text: It was not until 1:30a.m. that night that a female jogger was found in the North Woods area of the park. She had been pulled to the north some 300 feet off the path known as the 102nd Street Crossing. The path of her feet dragged through the grass was marked so clearly that it could be photographed. It was 18 inches wide. There was no evidence in the grass of footprints of multiple perpetrators. She was brutally beaten, suffering major blood loss and skull fractures; she was later revealed to have been raped.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: After her discovery, the police increased the intensity of their effort to identify suspects in this attack and took more teenagers into custody. The jogger was not identified for about 24 hours, and it took days for the police to retrace her movements of that night. By the time of the trial of the first three suspects in June 1990, "The New York Times" characterized the attack on the jogger as "one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980's".


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Trisha Meili was going for a regular run in Central Park shortly before 9:00p.m. While jogging in the park, she was knocked down, dragged nearly off the roadway, and violently assaulted. She was raped and beaten almost to death. About four hours later at 1:30 am, she was found naked, gagged, and tied, and covered in mud and blood in a shallow ravine in a wooded area of the park about 300 feet north of the path called the 102nd Street Crossing. The first policeman who saw her said: "She was beaten as badly as anybody I've ever seen beaten. She looked like she was tortured."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Meili was so badly injured that she was in a coma for 12 days. She had severe hypothermia, severe brain damage, severe hemorrhagic shock, loss of 75–80 percent of her blood, and internal bleeding. Her skull had been fractured so badly that her left eye was dislodged from its socket, which in turn was fractured in 21 places, and she also had facial fractures.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The initial medical prognosis was that Meili would die of her injuries. She was given the last rites. Because of this, the police treated the attack as a probable homicide. Alternatively, doctors thought that she might remain in a permanent coma due to her injuries. She came out of her coma after 12 days. She was then treated for seven weeks in Metropolitan Hospital in East Harlem. When Meili first emerged from her coma, she was unable to talk, read, or walk.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In early June, Meili was transferred to Gaylord Hospital, a long-term acute care center in Wallingford, Connecticut, where she spent six months in rehabilitation. She did not walk until mid-July 1989. She returned to work eight months after the attack. She largely recovered, with some lingering disabilities related to balance and loss of vision. As a result of the severe trauma, she had no memory of the attack or any events up to an hour before the assault, nor of the six weeks following the attack. During the trial of the defendants, Meili was not cross-examined due to the amnesia caused by her assault.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: At a time of concern about crime in general in the city, which was suffering high rates of assaults, rapes, and homicides, these attacks provoked great outrage, particularly the brutal rape of the female jogger. It took place in the public park that is "mythologized as the city's verdant, democratic refuge". New York Governor Mario Cuomo told the "New York Post": "This is the ultimate shriek of alarm."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: As identified by the Morgenthau report and "The New York Times" in a 2002 review of the case, several acts of violence were perpetrated that night by a group of more than 30 teenagers. These were:


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Three of the victims were black or Hispanic, like most of the suspects, complicating any narrative attributing the attacks solely to racial factors.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Patricia Ellen Meili was born on June 24, 1960, in Paramus, New Jersey, and raised in Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. She is the daughter and youngest of three children of John Meili, a Westinghouse senior manager, and his wife Jean, a school board member. She attended Upper St. Clair High School, graduating in 1978.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Meili was a Phi Beta Kappa economics major at Wellesley College, where she received a B.A. in 1982. The chairman of Wellesley's economics department said: "She was brilliant, probably one of the top four or five students of the decade." In 1986, she earned an M.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. in finance from the Yale School of Management. She worked from the summer of 1986 until the attack as an associate and then a vice president in the corporate finance department and energy group of Salomon Brothers, an investment bank.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Meili lived on East 83rd Street between York and East End avenues in the Yorkville section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. At the time of the attack, she was 28 years old.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In most media accounts of the incident at that time, Meili was simply referred to as the "Central Park Jogger", but two local TV stations violated the media policy of not publicly identifying the victims of sex crimes and released her name in the days immediately following the attack. Two newspapers aimed at the African American community—"The City Sun" and the "Amsterdam News"—and the black-owned talk radio station WLIB continued to cover the case as it progressed. Their editors said this was in response to the media having publicized the names and personal information about the five suspects, who were all minors before they were arraigned. The "Open Line" hosts on WRKS were credited with helping continue to cover the case until the convicted youths were cleared in 2002 of the crime.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In 2003, Meili publicly revealed her identity as the jogger in her memoir "I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility".


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The police were dispatched at 9:30p.m. and responded with scooters and unmarked cars. Through the night, they apprehended about 20 teenagers. They took custody of Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both 14 years of age, along with three other teenagers at approximately 10:15p.m. on Central Park West and 102nd Street. Steven Lopez, 14, was arrested with this group within an hour of the several attacks that were first reported to police. He was also interrogated.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The severely beaten Meili was not found until 1:30a.m. on April 20. Her discovery increased the urgency of police efforts to apprehend suspects. Antron McCray, 15; Yusef Salaam, 15; and Korey Wise (then known as Kharey Wise), 16, were brought in for questioning later that day (April 20), after having been identified by other youths in the large group as participants in or present at some of the attacks on other victims. Korey Wise said he had not been involved, and accompanied Salaam because they were friends. These were the six suspects indicted for the attack on the female jogger (later identified as Meili).


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Police took into custody no fewer than fourteen other suspects over the next few days, and arrested a total of ten suspects who were ultimately tried for the attacks. Among them were four African American and two Hispanic American teenagers who were indicted on May 10 on charges of assault, robbery, riot, rape, sexual abuse, and the attempted murders of Meili and an unrelated man by the name of John Loughlin.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Over the 48-hour period of time subsequent to the events of the night of April 19, police arrested additional suspects and interrogated numerous others. Among these was Clarence Thomas, 14, who was arrested on April 21, 1989, on charges related to the rape of the female jogger. After further investigation, he was never indicted, and all charges were dismissed against him on October 31, 1989. Also arrested in this period on charges of attacks against other persons in the park, and later indicted, were Jermaine Robinson, 15; Antonio Montalvo, 18; and Orlando Escobar, 16.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The videotaped confessions started on April 21, after the detectives finished unrecorded interrogations during which the five suspects were in custody for at least seven hours. Santana, McCray, and Richardson made video statements in the presence of parents. Wise made several statements unaccompanied by any parent, guardian or counsel. Lopez was interviewed on videotape in the presence of his parents on April 21, 1989, beginning at 3:30a.m. He named others of the group by first names in the group attacks on other persons but denied any knowledge of the female jogger. None of the six had defense attorneys during the interrogations or videotape process.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: When taken into custody, Salaam told the police he was 16 years old and showed them identification to that effect. If a suspect had reached 16 years of age, his parents or guardians no longer had a right to accompany him during police questioning, or to refuse to permit him to answer any questions. After Salaam's mother arrived at the station, she insisted that she wanted a lawyer for her son, and the police stopped the questioning. He neither made a videotape nor signed the earlier written statement, but the court ruled to accept it as evidence before his trial.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Salaam allegedly made verbal admissions to the police. He confessed to being present at the rape only after the detective falsely told him that fingerprints had been found on the victim's clothing and if his matched, he would be charged with rape. He said years later, "I would hear them beating up Korey Wise in the next room", and "they would come and look at me and say: 'You realize you're next.' The fear made me feel really like I was not going to be able to make it out."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The prosecutor planned to try the defendants in two groups and then scheduled the sixth defendant to be tried last. The latter pleaded guilty in January 1991 on lesser charges and received a reduced sentence.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Prosecution of the five remaining defendants—Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam—in the rape and assault case was based primarily on confessions which they had made after lengthy police interrogations. None of the defendants had legal counsel during questioning. Many consider the interrogation techniques to have been coercive and they have been subject to wide criticism. Within weeks, they each withdrew their confessions, pleaded not guilty, and refused plea deals on the rape and assault charges. None of the suspects' DNA matched the DNA collected from the crime scene: two semen samples that both belonged to one unidentified man. No substantive physical evidence connected any of the five teenagers to the rape scene, but each was convicted in 1990 of related assault and other charges. Subsequently, known as the Central Park Five, they received sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. Four of the defendants appealed their convictions, but these were affirmed by appellate courts. The four juvenile defendants served 6–7 years each; the 16-year-old was tried and sentenced as an adult and served 13 years in an adult prison. The five other defendants, indicted for assaults of other victims, pleaded guilty to reduced charges and received less severe sentences.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: On April 21, senior police investigators held a press conference to announce having apprehended about 20 suspects in the attacks of a total of nine people in Central Park two nights before and began to offer their theory of the attack and rape of the female jogger. Her name was withheld as a victim of a sex crime. The police said up to 12 youths were believed to have attacked the jogger.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The main suspects were a sub-group within the loose gang of 30 to 32 teenagers who had assaulted strangers in the park as part of an activity that the police said the teenagers referred to as "wilding". New York City senior detectives said the term was used by the suspects when describing their actions to police. The police described the attacks as "random" and "motiveless", saying they had "terrorized" people in the park. This account of the term "wilding" was soon disputed by investigative reporter Barry Michael Cooper, who said that it originated in a police detective's misunderstanding of the suspects' use of the phrase "doing the wild thing", lyrics from rapper Tone Loc's hit song "Wild Thing". There was massive media coverage of the conference, with the rape and beating of the female jogger especially recounted in dramatic, inflammatory language.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Normal police procedures stipulated that the names of criminal suspects under the age of 16 were to be withheld from the media and the public. But this policy was ignored when the names of the arrested juveniles were released to the press before any of them had been formally arraigned or indicted. For example, the name of Kharey Wise (he later adopted the use of Korey as his first name) was published in an April 25, 1989, article in the "Philadelphia Daily News" about the attack on the female jogger.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: By that time, more information had been published about the primary suspects in the rape, who did not seem to satisfy typical profiles of perpetrators. Common factors had been ruled out. Reporters had found that some came from stable, financially secure families; police had ruled out drugs or major robbery, and most had no criminal records. On April 26, 1989, "The New York Times" published a cautionary editorial against the use of labels and questioning why such "well-adjusted youngsters" could have committed such a "savage" crime.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: After the major media's decisions to print the names, photos, and addresses of the juvenile suspects, they and their families received serious threats. Other residents living at the Schomburg Plaza, where four suspects lived, were also threatened. Because of this, editors of "The City Sun" and the "Amsterdam News" chose to use Meili's name in their continuing coverage of the events.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Reverend Calvin O. Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, who came to support the five suspects, said to "The New York Times", "The first thing you do in the United States of America when a white woman is raped is round up a bunch of black youths, and I think that's what happened here."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: On May 1, 1989, at the time a real estate called for the return of the death penalty for murder in full-page advertisements published in all four of the city's major newspapers. Trump said he wanted the "criminals of every age [who were accused of beating and raping the jogger in Central Park twelve days earlier] to be afraid". The advertisement, which cost an estimated , said, in part,


title: Central Park jogger case

text: According to a contemporaneous article in the "New York Amsterdam News", the ad was "widely condemned", including by then-Mayor Koch. Colin Moore, one of the attorneys defending one of the Central Park defendants, said that the ad "proved that anything is possible in America", and that "even a fool can become a multi-millionaire."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: According to defendant Yusef Salaam, quoted in a February 2016 article in "The Guardian", Trump "was the fire starter" in 1989, as "common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty." Salaam said his family received death threats after papers ran Trump's full-page ad urging the death penalty.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Six youths were indicted with attempted murder and other charges in the attack on and rape of the female jogger, and additional charges related to the attack of David Lewis, the attack and robbery of John Loughlin, and riot:


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Each of the youths pleaded "not guilty". The families of Lopez, Richardson, and Salaam were able to make the $25,000 bail imposed by the court. The two other youths under 16 were returned to a juvenile facility to be held there until trial. Classified as an adult at 16, Korey Wise was separated from the others from the first and held in an adult jail at Rikers Island until trial.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Four of the six youths who were indicted for the rape lived at the Schomburg Plaza, 1309 Fifth Avenue, at the northeast corner of Central Park near 110th Street; two lived further north of there. The ones at Schomburg included friends Salaam and Wise, who lived in the northwest tower, and Kevin Richardson and Steve Lopez who lived elsewhere in the complex. They had seen each other in the neighborhood. The Schomburg was a large, mixed-income complex with two 35-story towers and an associated multi-story rectangular building. Designed for families, the complex was built in 1974 and was partially subsidized by the city and federal government; it had 600 households, in apartments ranging in size from studios to five bedrooms.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Four of the five had confessed to police about other attacks in the park in other areas on the night of April 19, including the assault and robbery of John Loughlin, to which they said they were witnesses or participants. Salaam's unsigned statement also covered the range of actions and crimes. According to "The New York Times", their accounts of these other attacks were accurate, unlike their confessions to the assault on the jogger. Only Wise made any statement about the different times and locations of the jogger attack, and detectives had taken him to the park to the crime scene before he made his videotaped confession.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Each of the suspects had made different errors in time and place about the jogger attack in their confessions, with most placing it near the reservoir. None of the five said that he had raped the jogger, but each confessed to having been an accomplice to the rape. Each youth said that he had only helped restrain the jogger, or touched her, while one or more others had raped her. Their confessions varied as to who they identified as having participated in the rape, including naming several youths who were never questioned. In his untaped confession, Salaam claimed to have struck the jogger with a pipe at the beginning of the incident.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Although four suspects (all except Salaam) confessed on videotape in the presence of a parent or guardian (who had generally not been present during the interrogations), each of the four retracted his statement within weeks. Together they claimed that they had been intimidated, lied to, and coerced by police into making false confessions. While the confessions were videotaped, the hours of interrogation that preceded the confessions were not.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Numerous pretrial hearings were conducted by Judge Thomas B. Galligan of the State Supreme Court of Manhattan, who had been assigned the case. Since 1986, judges were generally assigned by lottery, but the court administrator assigned him to this case. The defense attorneys criticized Galligan as being biased toward the assistant district attorney and handing down tough sentences. The counsel of the defendants filed a motion for a different judge which was rejected. In one of the pre-trial hearings, on February 23, 1990, Galligan ruled that he would accept the videotaped confessions and Salaam's unsigned statement as prosecution evidence at trial, despite defense counsel's objections. He said that Salaam's statement was being admitted as evidence because Salaam had lied to police about his age and showed them false identification.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Analysis indicated that none of the suspects' DNA matched either of the two DNA samples collected from the crime scene (from the jogger's cervix and running sock), but results were reported as "inconclusive" by the police.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In 1990 the six suspects (including Steve Lopez) indicted in the attack on the female jogger and other crimes were scheduled for trial. The prosecution arranged to try the six defendants in the Meili case in two separate groups. This enabled them to control the order in which certain evidence would be introduced to the court.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Lopez was scheduled to be tried in January 1991, after the two other groups of defendants in the rape and assault case. He had denied any knowledge of the rape in his videotaped confession, but was implicated by other defendants' statements. Like the five others, he was also indicted on charges related to the attack and robbery of Loughlin.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In the first trial, which began June 25 and ended on August 18, 1990, defendants Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana were tried. Each of the teenagers had his own defense counsel. The jury consisted of four white Americans, four black Americans, three Hispanic Americans, and one Asian American. Meili testified at the trial, but her identity was not given to the court. None of the three defense attorneys cross-examined her.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The jury deliberated for 10 days before rendering its verdict on August 18. Each of the three youths was acquitted of attempted murder, but convicted of assault and rape of the female jogger, and convicted of assault and robbery of John Loughlin, a male jogger who was badly beaten that night in Central Park. Salaam and McCray were 15 years old, and Santana 14 years old, at the time of the crime. As such, they were each sentenced by Judge Thomas B. Galligan to the maximum allowed for juveniles, 5–10 years each in a youth correctional facility.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The second trial, of Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise, began October 22, 1990 and also lasted about two months, ending in December. Kevin Richardson, 14 years old at the time of the crime, had been free on $25,000 bail before the trial.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer had a lengthy opening statement, and Wise broke down at the defense table after it, weeping and shouting that she had lied. He was removed temporarily from the courtroom. Richardson's defense counsel made a motion for a mistrial, because of the potential effect on the jury, but the judge rejected it. The trial proceeded.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The defense attorneys noted that each youth had limited intellectual ability and said that neither was capable of preparing the written statements or videotaped confessions submitted by the prosecution as evidence. They contended that the confessions had been coerced from youths vulnerable to pressure because of their age and their intellectual capacity.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Meili testified again at this trial; again, her name was not given in court. This time one of the defense counsels, Wise's lawyer, cross-examined her. She later said in an interview on "Oprah": "I'll tell you what—I didn't feel wonderful about the boys' defense attorneys, especially the one who cross-examined me. He was right in front of my face and, in essence, calling me a slut by asking questions like 'When's the last time you had sex with your boyfriend?'" Wise's lawyer had also asked her whether she had ever been assaulted by men in her life, suggested that a man she knew may have attacked her, and implied that her injuries were not as severe as they had been presented.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Richardson was the only one of the five defendants to be convicted of attempted murder of Meili, in addition to sodomy and assault of her, and robbery and riot in the attack on John Loughlin, another jogger in the park. He was sentenced to 5–10 years in a juvenile facility.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Korey Wise, 16 years old at the time of the crime, was acquitted of rape and attempted murder. At trial, Melody Jackson—the sister of one of Wise's friends—testified that while incarcerated in the Rikers Island he had told her that he had restrained and fondled the jogger. Wise was convicted of lesser charges of sexual abuse, assault, and riot in the attack on the female jogger and on Loughlin. Because of his age and the violent nature of the felony charge, he was tried and sentenced as an adult, receiving 5–15 years in adult prison. After the verdict, Wise shouted at the prosecutor: "You're going to pay for this. Jesus is going to get you. You made this up."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Jurors who agreed to interviews after the trials said that they were not convinced by the youths' confessions, but were impressed by the physical evidence introduced by the prosecutors: semen, grass, dirt, and two hairs described as "consistent with" the victim's hair that were recovered from Richardson's underpants.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: According to an FBI expert who gave evidence at the trial, all five defendants could be excluded as being the man who had left the semen samples inside Meili and on a sock. In total, 14 men were tested, including the defendants and Meili's former boyfriend, and all were excluded. The semen belonged to another, unidentified male. Years later, more advanced DNA testing also revealed that the hairs in Richardson's clothes did not match the victim.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: After the guilty verdicts, the judge sentenced the defendants to the maximum for the charges and their ages. The four youths under 16 were sentenced to 5–10 years each. They had been held in a juvenile facility since their arrest. Wise at 16 was tried and sentenced as an adult because of the nature of the violent felony charges against him, under the Juvenile Offender Law of 1978. He was sentenced to 5–15 years.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Four of the five all but appealed their convictions in the rape case the following year, but each of the convictions was upheld.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: On appeal, Salaam's attorneys charged that he had been held by police without access to parents or guardians. The majority appellate court decision upheld his conviction, noting that Salaam had initially lied to police about his age, claiming to be 16 and backing up his claim with a forged transit pass that, falsely, indicated that he was 16. This was the age at which a suspect could be questioned without a parent or guardian present. When Salaam informed police of his true age, they allowed his mother entry to the interrogation room.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In a 2016 "Guardian" article, defense counsel William Warren was reported saying that he thought Trump's ads in 1989 had played a role in securing conviction by the juries, saying that "he poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York City and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim." He noted, "Notwithstanding the jurors' assertions that they could be fair and impartial, some of them or their families, who naturally have influence, had to be affected by the inflammatory rhetoric in the ads." In 2019 "Time" magazine also assessed Trump's ads in 1989 as having adversely affected the case for the defendants.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In a 1991 "New York Review of Books" article, which was the first mainstream piece arguing that the Five's convictions had been wrongful, Joan Didion suggested the verdicts stemmed from a cultural crisis, writing that "So fixed were the emotions provoked by this case that the idea that there could have been, for even one juror, even a moment's doubt in the state's case ... seemed, to many in the city, bewildering, almost unthinkable: the attack on the jogger had by then passed into narrative, and the narrative was ... about what was wrong with the city and about its solution".


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Although Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer had said she would not accept a plea deal for any of the defendants indicted in the rape case, she did come to agreement with Steve Lopez and his attorney in the court on January 30, 1991, prior to a new jury being selected for his trial. He was considered the final of the six defendants in the jogger trial. Because Lopez had not acknowledged participating at all in the rape in his statement to police, and prosecution witnesses had withdrawn from testifying, based on what they said was fear of self-incrimination or "fear [for] their own safety", according to Lederer, the prosecution's case was extremely weak. Although some of the five defendants who had been convicted had accused Lopez in their statements of the most severe violence against the jogger, these could not be used against him because of their convictions.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: After agreeing to the plea deal, Judge Galligan allowed Lopez to remain free on $25,000 bail until sentencing. He was sentenced in March 1991 to to years, after pleading guilty to the mugging of jogger John Loughlin. Because Lopez was younger than 16 at the time of the crime, he was sentenced to serve his time in a juvenile facility.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The four youngest of the five convicted defendants each served between six and seven years in juvenile facilities. Richardson, Salaam, and Santana attended classes. Each earned a GED and also completed an associate degree while there.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Richardson and Salaam were released in 1997. Afterward Salaam talked about how important family was. He was part of an Islamic community and served as a spiritual leader at his youth facility, but talked about how important his mother's visits had been. He was held at a juvenile facility in upstate New York about five miles from the Canadian border and hours from New York City, but she came to see him three times a week.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Wise had to serve all of his time in adult prison, and encountered so much personal violence that he asked to stay in isolation for extended periods. He was held at four different prisons, having asked for transfers in the hope of improving his situation. He was released in August 2002, the last of the five men to leave prison.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Through this period, each of the five continued to maintain their innocence in the rape and attack of Meili, including at hearings before parole boards. While they acknowledged "witnessing or participating in other wrongdoing" in the park, they each maintained innocence in the attack of Meili.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In 2001, convicted serial rapist and murderer Matias Reyes was serving a life sentence in New York state. He had never been identified as a suspect in the Central Park attack on Meili, although he had been at large at the time. Reyes was believed to have raped another woman in the same area of the park during the day on April 17, two days before the attack on Meili. Initially the Meili case was investigated as a homicide, and the April 17 rape was investigated as a rape assault, which resulted in a lack of comparison of the DNA recovered in the two cases. The NYPD did not have a DNA database until 1994; after that, detectives and prosecutors had access to common information about DNA from evidence and taken from suspects in certain crimes. During the summer of 1989, Reyes raped four more women, killing one, and was interrupted after robbing a fifth.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In 2001 Reyes met Wise when they were held at the Auburn Correctional Facility in upstate New York. That year, Reyes informed a corrections officer that he had raped Meili. In 2002, Reyes told officials that on the night of April 19, 1989, he had assaulted and raped the female jogger. He was 17 years old at the time of the assault and said that he had committed it alone. He also said that he had intended to burglarize the victim's apartment. Reyes was then working at an East Harlem convenience store on Third Avenue and 102nd Street, and living in a van on the street.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office was notified of the confession in 2002. Morgenthau appointed a team led by Assistant District Attorneys Nancy Ryan and Peter Casolaro to investigate the case, based on Reyes's confession and a review of evidence. Reyes provided officials with a detailed account of the attack, details of which were corroborated by other evidence which the police held. In addition, his DNA matched the DNA evidence at the scene, confirming that he was the sole source of the semen found in and on the victim "to a factor of one in 6,000,000,000 people". Reyes' DNA matched the semen found on Meili, and he provided other confirmatory evidence. In announcing these facts, Morgenthau also said that the perpetrator had tied up Meili with her T-shirt in a distinctive fashion that Reyes used again on later victims in crimes for which he was convicted.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Based on interviews and other evidence, the team believed that Reyes had acted alone: The rape appeared to have taken place in the North Woods area after the main body of the thirty teenagers had moved well to the south, and the timeline reconstruction of events made it unlikely that he was joined by any of the defendants. In addition, Reyes was not known to have been associated with any of the six indicted defendants. He lived at 102nd Street, in what locals considered another neighborhood. None of the six defendants in the rape mentioned him by name in association with the rape.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Reyes' confession occurred after the statute of limitations had passed and the Central Park Five had already served their sentences. Reyes claimed he came forward because "it was the right thing to do". At the time of his confession, Reyes had been convicted and sentenced to life in state prison for raping and robbing four other women in the summer of 1989, murdering one of them and robbing another. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty to the top counts in each of the five cases on November 1, 1991.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: DNA analysis of the strands of hair found on the clothing of two of the defendants, conducted with advanced technology not available at the time of their trial, established that the hair did not belong to the victim, despite what the prosecution had claimed at trial.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Based on the newly discovered evidence, each of the five men who had been convicted of charges related to the rape of Meili filed motions to have their convictions set aside and for the court "to grant whatever further relief may be just and proper."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: After an investigation into the defendants' innocence was conducted in 2002 by Robert Morgenthau, District Attorney for New York County, the city withdrew all charges against the men, and the defendants' sentences were vacated. In 2003, the five men sued the City of New York for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress; they reached a $41 million settlement with the city government in 2013, and an additional $3.9 million in monetary compensation from the state in 2016.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In late 2002, as a result of his team's review, the confession by Reyes, and DNA testing that confirmed Reyes was the sole source of semen, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recommended vacating the convictions of the five defendants who had been convicted and sentenced to prison.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The DA's office questioned the veracity of the confessions, pointing to the many inconsistencies between them and their lack of correspondence to established facts. Nancy Ryan, an ADA in Morgenthau's office, filed an affirmation supporting motions by the defendants to vacate their convictions in December 2002:


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In addition to the confessions, the filing noted that a "reconstruction of the events in the park has bared a significant conflict, one that was hinted at but not explored in depth at the trials: at the time the jogger was believed to have been attacked, the teenagers were said to be involved—either as spectators or participants—in muggings elsewhere in the park." Ryan continued: "Ultimately, there proved to be no physical or forensic evidence recovered at the scene or from the person or effects of the victim which connected the defendants to the attack on the jogger, or could establish how many perpetrators participated." In light of the "extraordinary circumstances" of the case, the affirmation further recommended that the court also vacate the convictions for the other crimes, including robbery and assault, to which the defendants had confessed. Given that the defendants' confessions to the other crimes were made at the same time and in the same statements as those related to the attack on Meili, the DA's office argued that, had the newly discovered evidence been available at the original trials, it could have caused juries to question the defendants' confessions in those crimes as well.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The DA's recommendation to vacate the convictions was, and continues to be strongly opposed by lead detectives on the case and other members of the police department. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly complained at the time that Morgenthau's staff had denied his detectives access to "important evidence" needed to conduct a thorough investigation.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Linda Fairstein, who directed the original prosecution, agreed with the decision to vacate the rape charges but said the separate assault charges should have remained. Morgenthau would later express regret assigning the case to Fairstein, saying "I had complete confidence in Linda Fairstein. Turned out to be misplaced. But we rectified it."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The five defendants' convictions were vacated by New York Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Tejada on December 19, 2002. As Morgenthau recommended, Tejada's order vacated the convictions for all the crimes of which the defendants had been convicted. All five of the defendants had completed their prison sentences at the time of Tejada's order; their names were cleared in relation to this case. This also enabled them being removed from New York State's sex offender registry. In addition to having had difficulty getting employment or renting housing, as registered offenders, they had been required to report to authorities in person every three months. The city government also withdrew all charges against the men. Meili later commented that she wished the matter would have been retried, rather than settled out of court, and that she believed her attack was not the result of a single person.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Lawyers for the five defendants repeated their assessment that Trump's advertisements in 1989 had inflamed public opinion about the case. After Reyes confessed to the crime and said he acted alone, defense counselor Michael W. Warren said, "I think Donald Trump at the very least owes a real apology to this community and to the young men and their families." Protests were held outside Trump Tower in October 2002 with protestors chanting, "Trump is a chump!" Trump did not apologize.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: Following these events, in 2002, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commissioned a panel to review the case, "To determine whether the new evidence [from the Reyes affidavit and related evidence, and Morgenthau's investigation] indicated that police supervisors or officers acted improperly or incorrectly, and to determine whether police policy or procedures needed to be changed as a result of the Central Park jogger case." The panel was chaired by attorney Michael F. Armstrong, the former chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, which in 1972 had documented widespread corruption in the NYPD. Two other attorneys were included: Jules Martin, a former police officer and now New York University Vice President; and Stephen Hammerman, deputy police commissioner for legal affairs. The panel issued a 43-page report in January 2003.


title: Central Park jogger case

text: In its January 2003 Armstrong Report, the panel "did not dispute the legal necessity of setting aside the convictions of the five defendants based on the new DNA evidence that Mr. Reyes had raped the jogger." But it disputed acceptance of Reyes's claim that he alone had raped the jogger. It said there was "nothing but his uncorroborated word" that he acted alone. Armstrong said the panel believed "the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon."


title: Central Park jogger case

text: The report concluded that the five men whose convictions had been vacated had "most likely" participated in the beating and rape of the jogger and that the "most likely scenario" was that "both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively." The report said Reyes had most likely "either joined in the attack as it was ending or waited until the defendants had moved on to their next victims before descending upon her himself, raping her and inflicting upon her the brutal injuries that almost caused her death."