Another member of the Exonerated Five, the group vindicated of a high-profile assault and rape that took place Central Park in 1989, is running for New York City Council — hoping to replicate the momentum that sent Yusef Salaam to City Hall in the 2023 elections.
Raymond Santana, 50, on Tuesday announced his Democratic campaign for the Council seat currently held by Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala, who is term-limited and will leave office after this year. The district covers parts of East Harlem and the South Bronx. The city’s primary elections are scheduled for late June, giving Santana and other candidates just under four months to connect with voters and fundraise in a race that will likely determine the district’s next councilmember, given its heavily Democratic constituency.
Santana joins a growing list of candidates seeking to succeed Ayala, whose 8th District is directly east of Salaam’s 9th. Those candidates include Elsie Encarnacion, Ayala’s chief of staff. But Santana, who was imprisoned as a teenager after being falsely accused in the infamous 1989 incident alongside Salaam, said he is undeterred by the competition.
“I got a history with this community. They've been supporting me since I was 14 years old, and so it's only right that I support the community back,” he told Gothamist in a phone interview.
Santana said “deteriorating” conditions in parts of Harlem motivated him to seek office, and added that he is focused on issues like public safety, sanitation and mental health. He said he would push for improved relations between community members and police as part of that platform.
“I need them to also be involved in the process of helping to clean up the community, helping to police the community, helping to make the residents of my community safe,” he said of the NYPD.
The 1989 crime against Trisha Meili, a white woman who was jogging in Central Park at the time, led to the wrongful imprisonment of Santana, Salaam and three other Black and Latino teenagers. The teens became broadly known as the Central Park Five at the time, and the incident became a lightning rod for racial tensions in the city in an era when anxieties around crime were high.
Donald Trump, who was then a real estate developer, took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times calling for the teens to be sentenced to death. They each served several years in prison before their convictions were overturned in 2002, after another person confessed to the crime and was connected to the scene by DNA.
Salaam won the Democratic primary and general election for his City Council seat in 2023, pointing to his experience as a member of the Exonerated Five. Santana joined him and the three other members of the group on stage at the Democratic National Convention last August in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid.
They sued now-President Trump for defamation in October, saying his statements about the group during a debate with Harris were demonstrably false. Court records show the suit is still pending.
