When the first trial began in August 1990 against Salaam, Santana and McCray, Meili agreed to testify.

'It is very, very hard watching someone describe how people beat me, how people were trying to stop my screaming by beating my face,' she said. (MORE: Two toddlers survive fatal car crash that killed their mom, and then endure several more days lost and alone in the woods before rescue) 'Cardinal (John) O'Connor made a visit there. 'You had children, schoolchildren showing up and holding vigils outside,' said former reporter and professor Natalie Byfield. Meili was in a coma for about a week in the hospital before she finally opened her eyes. Richardson: Yeh, I think it’s on me right here. Prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer: Let me just ask you, you’re saying that she scratched you and you’re indicating a place on your face? She got kind of like scratched me a little bit. Richardson replied on the videotaped interrogation: 'Kevin Richardson had a scratch under his eye, so the detectives asked him, 'How did you get the scratch under your eye?'' said former New York City detective Eric Reynolds. But each teenager - except for Salaam - had made statements or open confessions about Meili’s attack, implicating themselves or each other. Prosecutors had no DNA and little evidence that matched the teenagers to the crime, the attack, or the scene. The teens - Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Antron McCray - eventually became known as the 'Central Park Five.' While Meili was in the hospital, with doctors unsure if she would live or die, New York authorities were charging five teenagers who had been held in connection with the Central Park assaults with her attack. 'I had several skull fractures and there were deep lacerations,' said Meili. (MORE: This mom’s realistic New Year’s resolution is to simply 'survive' and we're like, 'um, same') They treated me with such dignity and respect.' I support the work of law enforcement and prosecutors. 'I wish that it had gone to court because there's a lot of information that's now being released that I'm seeing for the first time. 'I so wish the case hadn't been settled,' Meili told ABC News' '20/20' in January. Watch the full story on '20/20' Friday, May 24, at 9 p.m.

And the police and prosecutors involved in the case agree. We have an obligation to do something fair for them, for the whole city to turn the page and move forward.'īut the settlement remains a decision that Trisha Meili - the jogger in that horrific attack - says the city should not have made.

'They spent a lot of their lives in jail, in prison, wrongly,' de Blasio said at a news conference at that time. In 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City finally settled with the Central Park Five, a group of teenagers who were convicted and later exonerated in connection with the rape and brutal assault on a jogger.

Pieces of Lies by Angela Richardson