Korey Wise

Korey Wise, born Kharey Wise, is a criminal justice activist renowned for his wrongful conviction in the 1989 Central Park jogger case. At 16, Wise was the oldest of the five Black and Latino teenagers -- collectively known as the Central Park Five -- wrongly accused of assaulting and raping a white female jogger in New York City's Central Park.

On April 19, 1989, Wise accompanied his friend Yusef Salaam to a police station for questioning, despite not being a suspect himself. Once there, detectives interrogated Wise about the assault on the jogger. After prolonged questioning without legal counsel or a guardian present, Wise, who had hearing impairments and a learning disability, provided a videotaped confession. This confession, later determined to be coerced and false, became a key piece of evidence in his trial. In 1990, Wise was tried as an adult and convicted of assault, sexual abuse, and riot, receiving a sentence of 5 to 15 years.

In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and serial rapist, confessed to being the sole perpetrator of the Central Park assault. DNA evidence corroborated Reyes's confession, leading to the exoneration of Wise and the other four men. By then, Wise had spent approximately 12 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Following his release, Wise became an advocate for criminal justice reform, sharing his experiences to raise awareness about wrongful convictions and systemic injustices. In 2015, he donated $190,000 to the University of Colorado Law School's Innocence Project, which was subsequently renamed the Korey Wise Innocence Project in his honor.

Wise's story gained widespread attention through the 2019 Netflix miniseries "When They See Us," directed by Ava DuVernay, which dramatized the experiences of the Central Park Five. As of 2024, Wise continues his activism, having spoken at the Democratic National Convention alongside Yusef Salaam, where they endorsed Kamala Harris for President and criticized Donald Trump for his past calls for their execution.