NEW YORK - Twelve years after they were found guilty, a judge tossed out the convictions of the five young men imprisoned for one of the city's most infamous crimes - the 1989 near-fatal beating and rape of the Central Park jogger - as well as for attacks on others in the park that night.

"The motions are granted as to all of the convictions," state Supreme Court Judge Charles J. Tejada told a packed Manhattan courtroom yesterday, referring to the defense motions to vacate the convictions based on new evidence uncovered this year.

Whoops and cheers erupted from family members and other supporters of the five young men in the court.

"Reparations," one man yelled.

"Black power," called out another.

DA reinvestigated

The judge's ruling came after an imprisoned serial rapist confessed to the attack this year and was linked by DNA evidence to the assault. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau reinvestigated the case and recommended the convictions be set aside.

Tejada's decision touched off contentiousness.

Lawyers for the five men, who have completed their prison sentences, signaled an intent to file civil suits, while also seeking a criminal probe into what they called police misconduct and prosecutorial abuses.

At the police department, where detectives have staunchly defended their investigation, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the ruling did not exonerate the defendants. He fired off a rare salvo at the DA's office, contending that Morgenthau has complicated the police department's own reinvestigation by blocking the release of information.

A spokeswoman for Morgenthau declined to comment.

The young men were not present to hear the reversal of the verdicts for the beating and rape of the 28-year-old investment banker.

Their convictions for robbing and assaulting two male joggers in the park that night were also tossed out.

As few crimes before or since, the attack shocked a city that was coping with soaring crime and racial tensions.

The victim, who was found unconscious in a ravine, made a slow yet surprising recovery. While she has said she had no memory of the assault, she is now writing a book about her life.

In the courtroom immediately after the ruling, Sharrone Salaam, whose son, Yusef, served seven years and 11 months behind bars for the crime, opened her jacket to reveal a red-and-white tie-dyed "Yusef is Innocent" T-shirt, which she had kept in her closet since her son went on trial.

"This should have happened over 13 years ago because all the evidence was here then," she declared. "People put on a blind eye."

Whatever Yusef Salaam was doing in Central Park that night of April 19, 1989, his mother said, "he was not committing crimes."

The convictions were based largely on the young men's confessions, four of them videotaped -though not Salaam's - and three of those given in the presence of their relatives.

The charges were tossed out after Matias Reyes came forward claiming that he alone had attacked and raped the jogger, and his DNA matched semen found on her sock at the crime scene.

Reyes, who is serving 33 1/3 years to life in prison, also committed a similar attack in the park two days before the brutal assault on the jogger. Other evidence, such as hair found on one of the young men that the jurors were led to believe matched the jogger's hair, was undermined by testing during the DA's reinvestigation.

Probable verdict

"Given the facts," the judge ruled, " ... it is virtually self-evident that the newly discovered evidence - specifically the confession of a self-admitted murderer and serial rapist corroborated by physical evidence, including scientific testing establishing that he was the sole source of DNA evidence connected to the Central Park jogger's rape ... would create the probability that ... the verdict would have been more favorable to the defendants."

Defense attorney Michael Warren, who represented three of the young men in their effort to vacate the convictions, said he was gratified with the day's developments.

But Warren said the fight was not over and he hoped there would be a criminal inquiry into the case.

The five defendants were convicted in two separate trials in 1990.

Karen Freifeld is a reporter for Newsday, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.