John,

In 1989, I was just a 15-year-old kid when I was wrongly accused of assaulting and raping a jogger in Central Park along with four other Black and Latino teenagers were wrongly accused.

When I was out on bail during my trial, I remember feeling confident that the truth would come out and we would all be found innocent. I was on the phone with a friend when the verdict came and I said, “Hey, they got the verdict. I'll see you in a little while. I'll be right back. I'll be home.” But I didn't come back until seven years later. Being incarcerated for something you didn’t do is a horrific experience — especially when you’re just a child.

While all five of us are now free and have been exonerated based on DNA evidence that proved our innocence, we’ll never know what our lives would have been like had we not been put through this horrible ordeal.

It’s because of my own lived-experience that I stand with the Innocence Project in this daily fight to help other people who’ve experienced similar injustices.

No one should have to go through wrongful conviction or incarceration — and yet countless people do. That’s why we need organizations like the Innocence Project, which works to free innocent people and pass policies to curb wrongful incarceration in the first place.

We just started our new fiscal year, and what we raise right now will directly impact what we’re able to do over these next 12 months. Will you help us start off in the strongest way possible by making a donation right now? With your support, we are hoping to hire more lawyers, paralegals, and policy experts.

I’m so grateful to have you as a part of this team and I know we will accomplish great things together in these next 12 months.

Thank you so much,

Yusef Salaam
Innocence Project Board Member
Exonerated in 2002