The motion to vacate the convictions actually has some of the evidence. The conviction for the rape was mostly based on the confessions, but there was also hair evidence. (Hair evidence isn’t very reliable.) https://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kassin/files/CPJ.... I don’t think it’s in the motion, but there was also a witness, Melody Jackson, who testified that one of the defendants told her (while incarcerated waiting trial) that he hadn’t raped the victim, but had held her down while another did. Also, another one of the young men arrested that night named one of the accused as the rapist: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-myth-of-the-central-park-f...
> In addition to the confessions, one of the other boys, while in the back of a patrol car, cried that he “didn’t do the murder,” but that he knew who did: Antron McCray. The boy beside him, Kevin Richardson, agreed: “Antron did it.” The jogger hadn’t yet been found. Later on, after Raymond Santana had been interrogated about the rape, he was being driven to another precinct. Without prompting, he blurted out, “I had nothing to do with the rape. All I did was feel her tits.”
However, several of the five were also convicted of other attacks. Indeed, part of the motion to vacate rests on the notion that they couldn’t have participated in the rape together, because they were involved in the other incidents:
> And, beginning at about 9:24 p.m. and continuing until roughly 9:45, a series of four male joggers were set upon on the jogging path at the northern end of the Central Park Reservoir. Two of the male joggers escaped essentially unharmed, but two, Robert Garner and John Loughlin, were assaulted. Garner was not seriously hurt. Loughlin, however, was knocked to the ground, kicked, punched, and beaten with a pipe and stick. He was knocked unconscious, and sustained significant but not life-threatening injuries.
(It’s essentially undisputed that Salaam had carried a pipe into the park that night.)
> 98. An additional issue is raised by the other incidents which took place in the park. For while the nature and locations of those incidents made it seem logical to believe that the defendants had attacked the jogger, the timing of events made it hard to understand when they could have. Shortly after their initial entry into the park, the larger group of which the defendants were a part temporarily split up. As a result, not all of the defendants participated both in the incidents that occurred along the East Drive and in the attacks at the reservoir; but at least some of them did. Given the times when each of those events were estimated to have occurred, it is difficult to construct a scenario that would have allowed the defendants the time to interrupt their progression south, detour to the 102nd Street transverse, and commit a gang rape.
The whole document dump is here: http://interactive.nydailynews.com/project/central-park-five. You’re not going to find accurate commentary about this topic, so I’d go ahead and read the primary materials. (For example, some of the facts Ann Coulter recites in her article on this are factually correct, for example the fact that the accused admitted to coming to the park to commit crimes and never retracted that part. I’m not going to link it here because the article also has a lot of garbage commentary.)
> In addition to the confessions, one of the other boys, while in the back of a patrol car, cried that he “didn’t do the murder,” but that he knew who did: Antron McCray. The boy beside him, Kevin Richardson, agreed: “Antron did it.” The jogger hadn’t yet been found. Later on, after Raymond Santana had been interrogated about the rape, he was being driven to another precinct. Without prompting, he blurted out, “I had nothing to do with the rape. All I did was feel her tits.”
However, several of the five were also convicted of other attacks. Indeed, part of the motion to vacate rests on the notion that they couldn’t have participated in the rape together, because they were involved in the other incidents:
> And, beginning at about 9:24 p.m. and continuing until roughly 9:45, a series of four male joggers were set upon on the jogging path at the northern end of the Central Park Reservoir. Two of the male joggers escaped essentially unharmed, but two, Robert Garner and John Loughlin, were assaulted. Garner was not seriously hurt. Loughlin, however, was knocked to the ground, kicked, punched, and beaten with a pipe and stick. He was knocked unconscious, and sustained significant but not life-threatening injuries.
(It’s essentially undisputed that Salaam had carried a pipe into the park that night.)
> 98. An additional issue is raised by the other incidents which took place in the park. For while the nature and locations of those incidents made it seem logical to believe that the defendants had attacked the jogger, the timing of events made it hard to understand when they could have. Shortly after their initial entry into the park, the larger group of which the defendants were a part temporarily split up. As a result, not all of the defendants participated both in the incidents that occurred along the East Drive and in the attacks at the reservoir; but at least some of them did. Given the times when each of those events were estimated to have occurred, it is difficult to construct a scenario that would have allowed the defendants the time to interrupt their progression south, detour to the 102nd Street transverse, and commit a gang rape.
The whole document dump is here: http://interactive.nydailynews.com/project/central-park-five. You’re not going to find accurate commentary about this topic, so I’d go ahead and read the primary materials. (For example, some of the facts Ann Coulter recites in her article on this are factually correct, for example the fact that the accused admitted to coming to the park to commit crimes and never retracted that part. I’m not going to link it here because the article also has a lot of garbage commentary.)