A judge has given prosecutors an extension through December 5 to investigate whether they should ask the court to reverse the convictions of the men known as the Central Park Five. Michael Warren, a lawyer who represents three of the five convicted rapists, argued yesterday that the confession of convicted rapist and murderer Matias Reyes, whose DNA matches that found at the crime scene, meant that his clients should have their convictions vacated immediately. Roger Wareham, Mr. Warren’s associate, is quoted by the Associated Press saying that prosecutors “are trying to connect our clients to other crimes. They are going to have to give up the rape case, so they have to say they’re guilty of something.”

There were victims of the wilding youths other than the woman who was assaulted while jogging that night. One was John Loughlin, then a 40-year old jogger, who was beaten with a lead pipe by Steven Lopez and others, including, by their own admission, the Central Park Five. Another was Robert Garner, a British Airways consultant, who was also beaten. There was a young woman who said she was beset by youths making “animal noises” who tried to rip her from her bicycle. A homeless man was beaten unconscious. Though the Central Park Five have denied partaking in the rape of the jogger, they have never denied assaulting other persons in the park.

“What a lot of people are missing,” the District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, told us yesterday, “is that what’s before the court is a motion to set aside the verdict on the basis of newly discovered evidence as set out in Section 440.10, paragraph 1G. … A lot of people are saying, ‘well, you’ve got to exonerate them.’ What we’re doing is addressing the motion. We’re trying to verify that [Reyes’s] confession and all the other things are accurate and in effect newly discovered evidence. … We’re doing this in accordance with the law. That’s not a technicality.” Mr. Morgenthau’s office has been re-interviewing many involved in the case and going through 15,000 pages of trial records. Giving the district attorney the time to conduct a thorough review is no technicality, either.