Raymond Santana, one of the “Central Park Five” who was acquitted, called former President Trump’s ruling in the hush money lawsuit “karma.”
“For me, it was a question of karma,” Santana said during an appearance Saturday with CNN anchor Victor Blackwell. Mediaite“This was an example of what happens when billionaires who cling to white privilege now have to answer, right?”
“So it’s going to be a surreal moment. And it’s also a moment where you just have to accept it. This is the same thing we had to deal with in 1989: having a trial, hearing the guilty verdict, hearing the guilty verdict, and now having to sit there and wait for the verdict. I understand that process very well.”
Santana, now an actor, was one of five black and Hispanic teenagers wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a white woman in the same court where Trump was tried in 1989. They all served time in prison until 2002, when DNA tests proved their innocence.
Blackwell noted during the program that the former president paid for full-page newspaper ads “calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York state” following the allegations against the boys, who were 14 and 15 years old at the time.
Trump was convicted by a Manhattan jury on Thursday of all 34 felony charges in the New York hush-money case that accused him of falsifying business records to hide an alleged affair during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Santana said it was a “surreal moment” to witness someone of Trump’s “status” have a similar experience in court.
“So I think now you get to see the accomplishments of someone like Donald Trump,” Santana said. “Now you get to see that a former president is not above the law, but an inspirational figure, and that he can have an experience very similar to mine. It makes it a surreal moment. For me, it’s a full circle moment.”
Asked about Trump’s sentence, Santana said that “in an ideal world” he would like to see the former president go to prison, but that all he’s thinking about is asking the former president, “Do you think we’re still guilty?”
The Rev. Al Sharpton also referenced the “Central Park Five” in response to Trump’s conviction.
“These children had no choice but to hear the vitriol from people who were egged on by a man who spent millions of dollars on full-page ads calling for their execution,” Sharpton said. “Now the tables have been turned. Donald Trump is the criminal, and five men have been acquitted. I am reminded of Dr. King’s maxim that the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”
