Yusef Salaam, exonerated 'Central Park Five' member, speaks to supporters and the media after winning a New York City Council seat. Salaam, one of five African-American and Hispanic teenagers wrongly convicted of raping a jogger in Central Park in 1989, one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in the United States, was elected to the New York City Council on November 7, 2023 evening, a highly symbolic victory celebrated in his Harlem neighborhood.