Korey Wise

Korey Wise (born July 26, 1972) is an American activist who travels around the United States advocating for criminal justice reform and sharing his own story of false convictions, unjust incarceration, and later vindication. Wise spent approximately 14 years incarcerated for crimes he did not commit, maintaining his innocence from 1989 until he was exonerated in 2002.

Wise was wrongfully convicted in the Central Park jogger case along with Raymond Santana Jr., Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, and Yusef Salaam, for the attack on Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old, white woman who was jogging in the park, as well as the attacks on eight other persons on the night of April 19, 1989.[1] Wise was the oldest of the group at 16 and the only member of the five to serve all his time in the adult prison system. He was not a suspect in any of the crimes initially, and freely accompanied his friend to the police station. Once there, however, detectives decided to interrogate him as well and connected him to the rape of a woman jogging in the park that night, despite his name not originally being on the list of suspects.[2][3]

In 2015, Wise donated $190,000 to the University of Colorado Law School Innocence Project, which was renamed the Korey Wise Innocence Project.[4]

In 2019, the story was dramatized and released as a four-episode miniseries on Netflix entitled When They See Us. Actor Jharrel Jerome won the 2019 Emmy for Lead Actor in a Limited Series/Movie for his portrayal of Wise.[5]

In July 2019, Wise purchased a condominium overlooking Central Park. He is the only one of the five who chose to continue to reside in New York City after his release.[6] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wise helped provide sustenance to senior residents in Harlem.[7]