Central Park Five prosecutor resigns from university board post as Netflix series reignites controversy

Linda Fairstein resigns from multiple nonprofit boards amid renewed scrutiny of her involvement in controversial case

Linda Fairstein - Manhattan's top sex crimes prosecutor during the notorious Central Park Five case - has resigned from the board of trustees at her alma mater amid renewed backlash for her role in the case.

The former prosecutor was in post in the aftermath of the 1989 rape and beating of a female investment banker jogging in Central Park. The attack became a national symbol of urban mayhem at a time when New York City's murder rate was nearing its historical peak.

Her role in the case has been featured in the recent release of the Netflix series When They See Us, which dramatizes the events surrounding the trial.

On Tuesday, the president of Vassar College posted a letter on its website saying that Ms Fairstein had resigned as a board of trustees member.

"I am told that Ms. Fairstein felt that, given the recent widespread debate over her role in the Central Park case, she believed that her continuing as a Board member would be harmful to Vassar," Elizabeth H Bradley wrote.

The ex-prosecutor also reportedly stepped down from her role at the victim-services agency Safe Horizon, which thanked her in a statement on Tuesday for "her decades of pioneering work on behalf of victims of sexual assault and abuse."

The teens involved in the case said they were coerced into confessing their involvement in the attack. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after convicted murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to committing the crime alone, and DNA linked him to it.

Ms Fairstein observed the boys' 1989 interrogation, conducted by another prosecutor and police. She didn't personally try the case.

Since its collapse, she has denied the teens were coerced and has defended authorities' conduct in the case, explored in a 2013 documentary by Ken Burns.

The city reached a roughly $41m (£32.2m) settlement with the five the next year, while not admitting any wrongdoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report