From WNYC Studios, it's Brian Lair, a daily politics podcast. It's Tuesday, July 26th.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. He's been in the news for various reasons since taking office in January. We'll talk

about several of them. Today, it's for the exoneration of a 48-year-old man you might call the

sixth member of the Central Park Five. Like Corey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron

McCray, and Youssef Salam, Stephen Lopez was charged in the 1989

rape and beating of a white female jogger in Central Park. The other five were tried and convicted,

served years in prison, and were later exonerated by Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau,

who had charged them in the first place. They also received a total of

$41 million in settlements from the city of New York. Stephen Lopez was also charged with rape

in that case, but never went to trial because he reached a plea bargain, guilty to robbing

a different jager, a male, and the rape charge was dropped. Lopez never appealed

his conviction, and only last year asked that it be revisited. Now the DA's office has vacated

that conviction, too, after newly reviewing the evidence. The exonerated five are now the exonerated

six. Of course, D.A DA Bragg has also been in the news

for charging, then dropping the charges against bodega worker Jose Alba, who fatally stabbed a man

caught on video attacking him, also for not pursuing a criminal case that had potentially

been in the works against Donald Trump, and Bragg has been in the news

as the symbol for the political right, at very least, of a progressive prosecutor movement

that has gone too far in a time of high crime rates. Republican gubernatorial candidate,

Lee Zeldin even says that if elected, he would fire Bragg, despite Bragg being elected by the people of Manhattan.

DA Bragg, thank you for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me again.

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