Lead Prosecutor In Central Park Five Case Resigns From Columbia Law

Columbia University Law School,

Elizabeth Lederer, the lead prosecutor in the Central Park Five trial, resigned her position at Columbia Law on Wednesday, attributing her decision to new a Netflix series that depicts law enforcement's railroading of five teenage boys in a brutal rape case in 1989.

In a letter explaining her departure, Gillian Lester, Dean of Columbia Law, said that Ava DuVernay's When They See Us had "reignited a painful—and vital—national conversation about race, identity, and criminal justice." It also catalyzed Lederer's exit.

"I've enjoyed my years teaching at CLS, and the opportunity it has given me to interact with the many fine students who elected to take my classes. However," she said in a statement included in Lester's letter, "given the nature of the recent publicity generated by the Netflix portrayal of the Central Park case, it is best for me not to renew my teaching application."

In 1990, Lederer was the assistant district attorney who spearheaded the prosecution of Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, and Yusef Salaam—the group of Black and Latino boys from whom police coerced confessions to a crime they did not commit. On the night of April 19th, 1989, a white woman named Trisha Meili had been jogging in Central Park when someone attacked her, beating her severely enough to leave her in a coma (from which she eventually awoke, albeit without any memory of the assault). Shortly thereafter, police rounded up the boys—who ranged in age from 14 to 16, and who, with two exceptions, did not know one another—and held them for hours of intensive interrogation.

Police reportedly promised the kids that, if they owned up to the crime, then they could go; despite inconsistencies in their accounts, and despite the circumstances under which those accounts were extracted, the Central Park Five were tried, convicted, and handed longterm prison sentences.

In 2001, however, known rapist Matias Reyes admitted to the assault: His DNA turned out to be a match to the material found on Meili's body, and a judge vacated the previous wrongful convictions in 2002.

In DuVernay's miniseries, Lederer—played by Vera Farmiga—seems somewhat unconvinced of the boys' guilt, despite her colleague Linda Fairstein's bullish focus on prison time. (Whatever misgivings the fictional Lederer appears to have, however, she ultimately ignores them.) Fairstein, who helmed the D.A.'s sex crimes division during the trials and is portrayed in the series by Felicity Huffman, has called DuVernay's version of events a "basket of lies." DuVernay, meanwhile, has said she offered both Fairstein and Lederer the opportunity to "share their point of view" with her as she wrote the script, and although Fairstein attempted to negotiate the conditions of an interview, neither spoke with DuVernay.

The series' release reignited calls for Lederer and Fairstein's retreat from their professional positions: Fairstein, who's authored a series of successful mystery novels, has been dropped by her publisher and has had to step down from various boards as a result of the renewed scrutiny. But we've known for years that the Central Park Five case constituted a wild miscarriage of justice, and people have been calling for Lederer's resignation at least since Ken Burns released a documentary on the trial in 2012.

Rather than dismissing Lederer from its faculty, the university simply wiped mention of the case from her bio, the NY Times reports.

On Tuesday, the Columbia Law Black Students Association circulated a letter demanding the school not only fire Lederer and undertake mandatory anti-racism training for educators, but also "explain any actions it has taken to hold [her] accountable."

"The lives of these five boys were forever changed as a result of Lederer's conduct," their letter reads. "During the investigation, Lederer and her colleagues used harmful, racist tactics, including physical abuse and coercion, to force confessions from five minors. The case they built was founded on false information and an overwhelming lack of physical evidence. As a result, five boys spent their formative years in prison."

We have contacted the Manhattan District Attorney's office, where Lederer still works as a prosecutor, for comment. We will update if we hear back. In Lester's statement, she touted her creation of "a special committee on diversity and inclusion, which includes faculty, students, and administrators," last year, as well as its work "to examine ways to advance and support inclusive teaching and learning experiences."