NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release – October 30, 2019

When They See Us: The Legacy of the Central Park Five
Kevin D. Richardson
November 13

Garden City, NY – On Wednesday, November 13, Nassau Community College will present When They See Us: The Legacy of the Central Park Five, during which Kevin D. Richardson will speak about his experience as one of the five teenagers arrested for the rape of a jogger in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. The event will take place at 11:00 a.m. in the multipurpose room of the College Center Building.

April 19, 1989 started off as a normal day for 14-year-old Richardson, but that night would change the course of his life and American society forever. After the brutal sexual assault of a jogger in Central Park, the New York City Police Department rounded up and arrested a total of ten suspects, including Richardson. Despite there being little evidence connecting him and four other African American teens to the crime, Richardson was charged and sentenced to serve five to 10 years in jail. After serving five-and-a-half years for a crime he did not commit, Richardson was put on probation and released from prison.

However, years later the conviction for the attack remained on his record. Then, in 2002, a convicted rapist confessed to being the attacker, DNA testing found he was a match, and the Manhattan District Attorney recommended all five boys--now men--be vacated of all charges.  That same year, Richardson joined forces with the other men falsely convicted and filed a lawsuit for $41 million, which was finally settled in 2014. In 2019, Netflix released When They See Us, a mini-series portraying the famous events of the case. The award-winning show has brought the injustices Richardson and the Central Park Five experienced back into the public’s attention.

Thirty years later, Kevin Richardson is an advocate for criminal justice reform and uses his personal experience with false coercions and unjust convictions to bring about change. He has partnered with the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing.

For more information about When They See Us: The Legacy of the Central Park Five, which is free, open to the public and accessible to the disabled, call 516.572.7148 or email phyllis.kurland@ncc.edu. Members of the public who plan to park their cars on campus should stop by the Public Safety Office to get a campus parking permit.

Media contact Charmian Smith 516.572.9634; charmian.smith@ncc.edu
ncc.edu/newsreleases

About Nassau Community College
Nassau Community College is an institution where more than 18,000 full-time, part-time, Workforce Development and continuing education students start and continue their successful journey through higher education. More than 80 fields of study are offered on a 225-acre campus located in the center of Long Island. As the largest single-campus two-year college in New York State, Nassau Community College maintains a national reputation for excellence. For more information, visit www.ncc.edu.

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