NATION IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : Father of ‘Wilding’ Defendant Testifies

The father of Raymond Santana Jr. testified that his 15-year-old son confessed to helping gang-rape and beat a woman jogger in New York’s Central Park in 1989 because the boy “didn’t understand what he was saying.” The older Santana, the final defense witness in the trial, was present during some of the time his son was being questioned, but he said that he had not read his son’s confession before he and the boy signed it. The younger Santana is on trial with two other youths in the “wilding” attacks by a gang of youths that shocked New York.