Linda Fairstein Speaks in her Own Defense After Netflix ‘Central Park Five’ Controversy
“a series so full of distortions and falsehoods as to be an outright fabrication”
As we pointed out recently, Linda Fairstein, the New York City sex crimes prosecutor who handled the famous ‘Central Park Five’ case, has been subjected to a purge after the premiere of a new Netflix program on the subject.
She claims the program has distorted the truth and maligned her unfairly. Now she is speaking out in her own defense. She wrote at the Wall Street Journal:
Netflix’s False Story of the Central Park Five
At about 9 p.m. April 19, 1989, a large group of young men gathered on the corner of 110th Street and Fifth Avenue for the purpose of robbing and beating innocent people in Central Park. There were more than 30 rioters, and the woman known as the “Central Park jogger,” Trisha Meili, was not their only victim. Eight others were attacked, including two men who were beaten so savagely that they required hospitalization for head injuries.
Reporters and filmmakers have explored this story countless times from numerous perspectives, almost always focusing on five attackers and one female jogger. But each has missed the larger picture of that terrible night: a riot in the dark that resulted in the apprehension of more than 15 teenagers who set upon multiple victims.
That a sociopath named Matias Reyes confessed in 2002 to the rape of Ms. Meili, and that the district attorney consequently vacated the charges against the five after they had served their sentences, has led some of these reporters and filmmakers to assume the prosecution had no basis on which to charge the five suspects in 1989. So it is with filmmaker Ava DuVernay in the Netflix miniseries “When They See Us,” a series so full of distortions and falsehoods as to be an outright fabrication.
It shouldn’t have been hard for Ms. DuVernay to discover the truth. The facts of the original case are documented in a 117-page decision by New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Galligan, in sworn testimony given in two trials and affirmed by two appellate courts, and in sworn depositions of more than 95 witnesses—including the five themselves. Instead she has written an utterly false narrative involving an evil mastermind (me) and the falsely accused (the five).
Fairstein points to specific examples of where the program gets it wrong:
Consider the film’s most egregious falsehoods. “When They See Us” repeatedly portrays the suspects as being held without food, deprived of their parents’ company and advice, and not even allowed to use the bathroom. If that had been true, surely they would have brought those issues up and prevailed in pretrial hearings on the voluntariness of their statements, as well as in their lawsuit against the city. They didn’t, because it never happened.
The attacks on Fairstein have not just been on her character. Her ability to make a living has also been dragged into it.
Jordan Moreau reports at Variety:
Central Park Five Prosecutor Dropped by Longtime Book Publisher
The Central Park Five prosecutor Linda Fairstein has been dropped by her book publisher following the release of Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us” miniseries, her spokesperson confirmed to the AP on Friday.
The former prosecutor began publishing novels in the mid ’90s, several years after she oversaw the wrongful conviction of five teens of color for the rape of a Central Park jogger. She has authored more than 20 best-selling crime novels, and her most recent book, “Blood Oath,” was published in March. Fairstein also won the International Thriller Writers Silver Bullet Award in 2010 and the Nero Wolfe Award for Excellence in Crime Writing in 2008.
More than 125,000 people have signed an online petition at Change.org calling for retailers to stop selling Fairstein’s books, and the hashtag #CancelLindaFairstein has been gaining popularity on Twitter.
Some people are even calling for her old cases to be reopened.
Carmen Perez writes at Common Dreams:
Reopen Linda Fairstein’s Cases and Hold New York’s Criminal Justice System Accountable
Like many of you, I was greatly impacted by Ava Duvernay’s essential documentary When They See Us, which premiered on Netflix this week. Ava’s film excavates the truth surrounding how five Black and Latino men were wrongly convicted for an attack on a jogger in 1989, resulting in prison sentences that lasted as long as thirteen years. It has sparked a much-needed conversation, popping up in people’s everyday lives, in a doctor’s office, at the hair salon, around the dinner table.
The significance of this particular case is much broader than the miscarriage of justice that was inflicted on these five men: Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana Jr., Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam. We need to know their names, and understand what was done to them, to understand what happens and has happened to millions of black and brown people in America…
We must reopen Linda Fairstein’s old cases, which is the goal of the #CancelLindaFairstein campaign started by my team of activists at The Gathering for Justice and Justice League NYC. We must hold her accountable to any bias that showed up in other cases. But we also have to spend meaningful energy on holding the system accountable, because the problem is certainly much bigger. The system is set up to incentivize incarceration.
The social justice mob has become emboldened in recent years.
They now seem intent on destroying people’s lives simply because they believe they can.
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Seems to me that this woman has spoken out on the reality of false rape accusations.
I wonder if that made her fair game.
Fairstein wouldn’t fight back, when she should have. The battle’s over. She lost. Now that she’s realized what the price is for turning the other cheek, she swings the bat. Too little, too late. And she was one of them to boot.
Way back when NYC gave these 5 miscreants that money, I knew something was off. From what I recall, the five were definitely among the group doing the attacks, and, more than likely, they WERE involved in the attack on the jogger.
The creep who confessed, at no cost to himself, is a separate case. He did it. But what his connection was to the entire attack remains unclear. The five aren’t talking.
Regardless, his involvement never should have “exonerated” the five. They rode a political bandwagon.
That’s still rolling.
Everybody now thinks that if DNA evidence isn’t there to inculpate you, you are innocent. It’s a new aphorism.
Netflix is becoming a cancer. They make a movie utterly devoid of context, which onvinces millions of imbeciles that they know the truth, when, in fact, they aren’t even close.
I suggest we all stop watching TV.
Accomplice liability through “complicity” exists in every state and at the federal level. Accomplices that encourage, assist, command, and otherwise assist in the commission of a crime by a principal are equally culpable and subject to the same punishment. One that helps surveil, catch up with, entrap, and hold down a victim, or provide lookout during the foregoing without leaving DNA behind is an accomplice and can be charged with rape and sentenced just the same as the principal that penetrates a victim and leaves DNA behind.
The public needs an explanation of the foregoing legal precepts.
The five are talking and basically saying “watch the movie”. I happen to remember this trial and would respond: “read the appellate decision”.
There’s no question that Reyes (the 6th man, and the one who falsely claimed to be the sole attacker) raped the jogger. His semen was found in her cervix and on her sock. But Reyes was just one of many people who attacked the jogger that night. Reyes told a cellmate that he heard the woman screaming in the park and ran to join the “fun.” He apparently came upon the woman as the other attackers were leaving. The woman, who’d been beaten nearly to death, was unconscious, so Reyes raped her.
There was plenty of evidence that Reyes was not the only attacker. The doctor who treated the jogger that night said that there were multiple, different-sized handprints visible on her body. Independent witnesses told police they’d seen the Central Park 5 in the spot near where the jogger was assaulted. The 5 themselves made multiple statements incriminating themselves in the attack on the jogger, and not just during police questioning. For example, in a jailhouse phone call, one of the 5 told a friend that he had not raped the jogger, he’d just held her legs open so his buddy could rape her.
There was a substantial amount of evidence that the 5 were part of the gang that attacked the jogger, and the 5 never denied that they attacked other innocent people in the park that night as well. The Netflix production is a rancid pack of “social justice” lies about 5 vicious thugs whose convictions were anything but “wrongful.” The only wrongful thing was the city of NY paying these vile criminals millions of dollars of taxpayer money, and allowing them to pretend they are “innocent,” which they most certainly are not.
I dropped my Netflix account over crap like this and their Obama shit.
I think that the smear campaigns against George Zimmerman and Officer Wilson should be prosecuted. Both continue to be maligned.
Injustice warriors need to be treated in the same way as the KKK and similar groups.
Pity she won’t sue for libel (if possible).
Netflix seems to have deep pockets
Netflix is the beneficiary of the new financing world in which it is permissible for companies that lose a lot of money for a long period to gain [dominant] market share.
Netflix burns through cash in a manner that is almost as ugly as Tesla. Netflix is issuing a lot of junk bonds to finance trash like this and deals with Zero Obama and family.
The industry imposed painful restrictions on Netflix a few years ago to delay release of new products as long as possible so pay per view had a period to sell without competition. Various owners are withdrawing products from Netflix to support their own competitive ventures. Netflix is now facing streaming competition from every angle, and Redbox has DVD’s for rent before Netflix does.
Netflix is a future gangbuster bankruptcy or an acquisition by a media conglomerate like an integrated cable provider and studio/network.
Their P/E ratio is absolutely insane. I don’t understand how they pull out of it (or why anyone thinks they can).
I worked in Manhattan during the time of the attack and the trial and was furious when I read NYC gave those animals money.
Over 25 years ago i took several Ethics classes in a masters program from a professor who graduated from USC.
He recounted that he had a conversation with several students who enrolled in the Film major there.
All of them said they chose that major at USC because they all wanted to change the world.
This is the result
He also recounted that a brilliant PhD student in his group presented her research to the group, but explained that she was not going to submit her research for her PhD, after all that work, because she feared that Newt Gingrich would use it and manipulate it for the purposes of the Conservative movement.
She was willing to throw it away because of her ideals.
Well, if she were a true scientist, she wouldn’t suppress data that belongs to humanity rather than any one person (but leftist very rarely put zealotry before science).
that should be flipped to say “(but leftists very rarely put science before zealotry)”
Search on Fair Oaks Farm animal abuse. A bunch of leftists who were so married to the narrative got jobs on the farm staged animal abuse for videos and then released it like the farm was abusive to animals.
post submitted before I finished… below is what really happened. But every media outlet jumped on the lie.
below was the farm had to say about what went down…
”For everyone sharing the “Fair Oaks Farm” video, and are “outraged” by the content …there are a few things you probably need to know;
1) The “ARM” is a pro-vegan group, whose agenda and intent IS to end the consumption of all true dairy products.
2) The “ARM” group, “infiltrated” the FOF operations, as employees. In order to compile the footage they’ve shown you, they had to work for FOF for nearly two years….and after two years, that was all the footage they could compile.
4) FOF has a policy of “see something, say something”, to which the “ARM” employees refused to do…so only by violating FOF policies, did the abuse occur….at the necessity of “ARM’s” socio-political agenda.
5) FOF, released a statement, several weeks ago…well before “ARM” released it’s “footage”…explaining that they discovered the groups activities. How did FOF discover the activities? By terminating the employees who were abusing the animals. After being terminated, the “ARM” infiltrators bragged about how they were going to “ruin” FOF, and subseqently exposed themselves.
6) Of the 4 employees involved in the abuse to which “ARM” shows footage of….the 3 that worked directly for FOF were terminated. Two of those employees, were later exposed to be apart of the “ARM” operation. The fourth person involved, is not a FOF employee, at all.
7) Actual FOF employees observed the abuse being committed and staged by those working for “ARM”, and they reported the abuse…which led to FOF both discovering these activities and terminating the employment of the abusers.
All that said, the truth is, “ARM” staged the abuse, conducted the abuse, and then reported the abuse, while actual FOF employees discovered it, put a stop to it, and are now under attack by the social media for something they didn’t actually do. For those of you who are outraged….you’ve been played”.
Most Netflix documentaries are little more than propaganda films. They’re not design to tell the whole truth, but to put a certain spin on events to make the viewer believe what they deem to be politically correct.
And they wonder why we cling bitterly to our guns.
Only in a prog shit-hole like NYC does this kind of crap happen.
I’ve googled around unsuccessfully looking for a copy of the “117-page decision by New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Galligan” that Fairstein mentions. Can anyone post a link?
Thanks for the news flash, Linda, conservatives have been saying for years that documentaries are not objective, not unbiased, and lack any ethical criteria.
Good job, though, really timely effort on you part.
The Netflix documentary was nothing more than an effort to support a theory. It was neither objective nor comprehensive.
There were two things that the documentary ignored. The first was that, while Reyes was a rapist of the jogger, he was not the only one. There were two, distinct semen samples collected from the jogger. One would prove to belong to Reyes. The other has never been identified. The second thing is that all of the convicted confessed to participating in the assault on the jogger, though they said that they only “held” her down. And, all of their complaints, concerning their treatment while in police custody were dealt with by the court at the time. So, one has to wonder exactly why the charges and sentences were set aside based solely upon the word of a convicted felon serving a life sentence? A word which the second unidentified semen sample casts substantial doubt upon. Could it have anything to do with the fact that NY is a bastion of liberal Progressive thought and practice?
I have googled around unsuccessfully for the “117-page decision by New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Galligan” to which Fairstein refers. Can anyone post a link?
You can reference the name of the 5, there are multiple reported cases, and search for a decision for each defendant. For example, People v. Salaam from 1993.
https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/court-of-appeals/1993/83-n-y-2d-51-0.html
Plenty of sleaze to go around in this case: note that one of the appellant attorneys is William M. Kunstler.
Fifty years in the biz and Ms. Fairstein’s friends and colleagues are nowhere to be seen – or worse – they (the nomenklatura class) implicitly denounce her by removing her from non-profit charity boardship-patronships or drop their business associations with her.
This is exactly how Mao and Jiang Qing drove wedges into, and split, the old conservative power elite within the communist left – Deng Xiaoping was a conservative and purged twice.
The very public Struggle Meetings on twitter. The Big Character poster denouciations on social media sites. Break the will of the man or woman being struggled. Make them confess to culture crimes they never committed. If they refuse, denounce family members and culturally cudgel their children.
There have to be plenty of causes for actions to use to punish these people. High profile personal examples of wealth to long term poverty examples. So called justice warriors need to end up broke, homeless, begging on street corners.
Outrageous conduct by Democrats has been driving moderates away, converting them into Trump supporters.
The victim does not believe it was just one person.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/case-settled-1989-central-park-jogger-believes-person/story?id=63077131
This is why the Obamas were brought to Netflix….this.exact.programming. Read this NYT article on their being brought onboard and this from another online media outlet.
Others have also recently been brought in, for the same reason (Jay Z comes to mind, but there are others, less well known-it is hard to “google” but they’re out there via search). Take a look at this list and it is clear there is a “social justice” mission at Netflix.
The need to tell the truth and fight back is REAL. I hope this woman sues and gets a massive ruling and payout in her favor. Pushing propaganda, destroying people’s lives, that is NOT something that can go on unchecked.
But who will take on the Obamas, et al.? No one wants the race card thrown down…on them.
The filmmaker, Ava DuVernay, also had problems with the truth in her movie about Selma. I think that is why they never really pushed for their Oscars–because it would embarrass the studio.
She is a radical and this series is BS.
I wonder if the legal records/search terms weren’t also scrubbed or sequestered before this project ever got off of the ground.
After all, if nobody can find out the real truth, then this travesty replaces it as “the truth”.
Obama and his ilk seem like they are trying to set up a reverse apartheid in this country.
God help us all….
These comments make me wonder about any legal documentary put out by Netflix. Now I have to question the validity of “To Make a Murderer” which was very convincing.
Inside Higher Education is having another thread about this case, and the charges of racism are flying thick and fast.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/06/14/columbia-law-adjunct-latest-leave-academe-following-release-new-film-central-park