February Lansing Economic Club

Description

In partnership with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-Michigan, the Lansing Economic Club will welcome Kevin D. Richardson, Member of the Exonerated 5, on Wednesday, Feb. 14. Richardson will share his story about the injustices he and the Central Park Five experienced. The program will be moderated by Michigan Supreme Court Justice Kyra Harris Bolden.

More About Kevin D. Richardson:

April 19, 1989 started off as a normal day for 14-year-old Kevin D. Richardson, but that night would change the course of his life and American society forever. After the brutal attack and sexual assault of jogger Trisha Ellen Meili in Central Park, the New York Police Department rounded up and arrested a total of 10 suspects, including Richardson. Despite there being no DNA and no evidence connecting himself and the four other teens to the crime, Richardson was charged and sentenced to serve 5 to 10 years in jail. After serving 7 years for a crime he did not commit, Richardson was put on 3 years of probation, had to register as a sex offender and was released from prison. 

However, years later the conviction for the attack remained on his record. In 2002, New York District Attorney Robert Richardson joined forces with the other men falsely convicted and filed a lawsuit for $41 million, which was finally settled in 2014. In 2019, Netflix released When They See Us, a mini-series portraying the famous events of the case. The celebrated and awardwinning show has brought the injustices Richardson and the Central Park Five experienced back into the public’s attention. 

30 years later, Kevin Richardson is an advocate for criminal justice reform and uses his personal experience with false coercions and unjust convictions to bring about change. He has partnered with the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing. In addition, Syracuse University created The "Our Time Has Come" (OTHC) Kevin Richardson Scholarship. The scholarship fund named after Richardson focuses on people of color and helps them achieve an education when they might not have had the financial means to do so.