In the long run, Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed new Netflix series about the infamous Central Park jogger rape case may increase public understanding about the horrors of wrongful convictions and the fact that people, if coerced, will confess to crimes they didn’t commit.
In the short term, “When They See Us” appears to have drastically changed public perception of Linda Fairstein, the once-revered Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor. As the miniseries shows, she led police efforts to build the case against five black and Latino boys, ages 14 to 16, who were wrongly convicted of raping and beating jogger Tricia Meili in Central Park in 1989.
Fairstein, now an author of the popular Alexandra Cooper mystery series, does not come off well in the four-part series. As played by a scenery-chewing Felicity Huffman, the fictional Fairstein makes righteous proclamations about seeking justice for sexual assault victims but badgers police and fellow prosecutors to secure confessions and hide exculpatory evidence from the defense.
Fairstein and a future U.S. president named Donald Trump also are depicted as pushing a racist narrative about violent, out-of-control boys from Harlem “wilding” their way through Central Park.
The reaction against Fairstein has been swift and fierce. A #CancelLindaFairstein social media movement has called for publishers to stop selling her books and for readers to stop buying them. The series also has prompted staff members at a New York City nonprofit she’s been involved with for 20 years to push to remove her from its board of directors, TMZ reported.
To one of the men wrongfully convicted, Fairstein is getting what she deserves.
“When you do dirt, you can’t run, no matter how long it is,” Raymond Santana said in an interview with TMZ. He was 14 when he was arrested and spent seven years in prison.
“The truth comes out,” added Santana, now a 44-year-old clothing designer and activist. “Even though it’s 30 years later, she has to pay for her crime. Whether it’s in the courtroom or whether it’s socially, it is what it is.”
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There was no physical evidence tying the five teens to the crime, but they were convicted nonetheless. Twelve years later — after they spent from four to 12 years in prison — DNA evidence pointed to a serial rapist, who confessed to the attack while serving a life sentence for other crimes.
The Manhattan district attorney vacated the men’s convictions in 2002, and New York City in 2014 settled the men’s wrongful conviction lawsuit for $40 million.
But even after New York City released thousands of pages of case documents in 2018 supporting the decision to vacate the convictions, Fairstein continued to defend the initial convictions and to deny that the confessions were coerced. In a 2002 interview with The New Yorker, she described the arrests of the suspects as “one of the most brilliant police investigations I’ve ever seen.”
Using the #CancelLindaFairstein hashtag, people have taken to social media to call on her publisher Simon and Schuster and retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble to pull her books from their shelves. They have accused her of abuse of power and say she must be held accountable.
Seriously, @LindaFairstein MUST be held accountable for the innocent lives she deliberately ruined in her quest for fortune and fame #CancelLindaFairstein #WhenTheySeeUs #CentralParkFive
— furonda brasfield (@therealfuronda) June 2, 2019
https://twitter.com/geekydad74/status/1135641594458193920
A Change.org petition has gathered nearly 50,000 signatures from people who agree that retailers and publishers need to stop selling her books.
“Linda Fairstein achieved her fame and fortune through her wild imagination and at the expense of five INNOCENT children’s pain,” the petition reads. “Linda Fairstein led a witch hunt against five teenage boys even though the physical evidence didn’t support her theory. … She led the hunt that fundamentally changed these men’s lives forever and unfairly tarnished their reputation.”
Meanwhile, staff members at Safe Horizon, a nonprofit that supports victims of abuse and violent crime, have been incensed to learn about Fairstein’s actions in the Central Park Five case through DuVernay’s miniseries.
Sources told TMZ that some staffers didn’t know Fairstein was on the board of directors. They have accused her of racism and say she doesn’t belong on the board of an organization that mostly serves minorities. They have asked the nonprofit’s CEO to remove her.
The negative portrayal of Fairstein in “When They See Us” is something the former prosecutor tried to prevent, according to DuVernay. She recently revealed in an interview with the Daily Beast that Fairstein tried to “negotiate” how she would be included in the series.
DuVerney said Fairstein pushed back when she reached out for an interview while writing the script.
“(She) actually tried to negotiate,” DuVernay told the Daily Beast. “I don’t know if I’ve told anyone this, but she tried to negotiate conditions for her to speak with me, including approvals over the script and some other things.”
“So you know what my answer was to that, and we didn’t talk,” DuVernay said.
