New York Injury Attorneys Blog
With the recent $40 million settlement of the Central Park Five case, I am reminded of one of the unfortunate truths of personal injury law: no matter the figure, a financial award is never a true substitute for the physical, emotional or psychological damages inflicted on the victim.
In April, 1989, five black and Hispanic teenagers aged 14 to 16 were accused of beating and sexually assaulting a white woman on her run through Central Park. The boys’ case played into the racial tensions of the time as well as the widespread fear that the city was being overrun by gangs and hooligans. The boys were given nicknames like “the wolf pack” and “animals” in the papers, and “wilding” became a new verb describing these fearsome actions.
