NEW YORK _ Beleaguered "Central Park Five" prosecutor Linda Fairstein resigned under fire Tuesday from her positions with Vassar College and the board of directors at the God's Love We Deliver charity.
"She did step down, and we accepted her resignation today," said Terrence Meck, chairman of the board at God's Love. "This is an internal letter only, and we are not sharing its contents."
Vassar College President Elizabeth Bradley, in a statement to the school community, explained that the massive backlash against Fairstein since the airing of the fictionalized Netflix series "When They See Us" led the lawyer to walk away from the college's board of trustees.
"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," said Bradley.
Fairstein served for close to two decades with God's Love, but her charitable efforts disappeared in the flood of negative publicity sparked by the new recounting of the Central Park Five prosecution. Fairstein, as head of the sex crimes unit in the Manhattan District Attorney's office, led the case against the quintet _ all convicted, jailed and later cleared in the case.
In director Ava DuVernay's version of headline-making 1989 case, Fairstein (played by Felicity Huffman) is portrayed as a prosecutor who decides early on the boys are guilty and never waivers from that belief.
There are reportedly calls for Fairstein, 72, to leave her position on the board of Safe Horizon, a New York nonprofit aiding victims of abuse and violent crime. A petition drive called for her ouster from the Vassar College Board of Trustees before Fairstein opted to remove herself.
And nearly 57,000 people signed a change.org petition urging publishers and booksellers to abandon the best-seller mystery author over her role in the 1989 attack in Central Park where a jogger was attacked, raped and nearly beaten to death.
"Linda Fairstein achieved her fame & fortune through her wild imagination & at the expense of five INNOCENT children's pain," reads a post with the petition. "Because of her shameful past I am starting a petition to ask ALL retailers & book publishers to stop selling Linda Fairstein books or any product that has ties to her."
Fairstein was also forced to shutter all her social media accounts.
Although the five teens arrested that night were convicted, all were exonerated after another man admitted to the rape _ a claim confirmed by a DNA match. The defendants reached a $41 million settlement with the city in 2014, although Fairstein has continued to defend her role in the prosecution.
Just two months ago, the ex-prosecutor hosted the 16th annual "Authors in Kind" benefit for God's love, a literary luncheon where guests gathered to hear well-known authors speak and sign copies of their books.
