Man Exonerated In Central Park Five Case Tells CNN That Karma Has Come Home To Roost For Donald Trump

Raymond Santana, one of New York City’s wrongly accused “Central Park Five,” said Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of business fraud was a case of karma in action.

CNN’s Victor Blackwell explained that Santana was one of five Black and Brown teenagers who were “charged, tried, and convicted” of beating a raping a woman in New York’s Central Park in 1989.

“Donald Trump paid for full-page ads in New York City newspapers. He called for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York. Trump wanted these boys killed!” Blackwell said. “In 2002, a convicted rapists and murderer confessed to the Central Park rape, and the Central Park Five became ‘The Exonerated Five.’ But Trump has never acknowledged their innocence or apologized.”

Santana spoke about what it was like to hear that Trump was now a convicted felon.

“For me, it was about karma,” Santana said. “It was the example of, this is what happens when rich billionaires who stand on white privilege now have to answer, right?” Santana continued:

So it becomes a surreal moment. It also becomes a a moment where you just got to take it in, right? This is the stuff that we had to deal with of 1989: going through trial, hearing the conviction, hearing a guilty verdict. And then, now having to sit there and wait for sentencing. I understand that process all too well.

And, so, I think now, it’s like, you get to see a person of Donald Trump’s stature right? Who was a former president, and now you get to see that he’s not above the law, that he can be touched. That he can have this experience that’s very similar to mine. It becomes a moment that is a surreal moment. It’s a full circle moment for me.

Santana added, “Now that Donald Trump has experienced the justice system, now that he has dealt with prosecutors, dealt with the court system itself, said that it’s rigged, asked for venue change, said that there’s no respect. He said it was a rigged decision. And, so, now that he has gone through this experience, and he has experienced the criminal justice system and its almost totality, I want to ask him: do you think that we’ still guilty? Do you think that the criminal justice system is it correct?”

Watch the clip above via CNN.