NEW YORK - Prosecutors asked a judge Thursday to throw out the convictions of five young men found guilty of beating and gang-raping a jogger during a 1989 "wilding" spree in Central Park.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's recommendation came 11 months after a convicted rapist who had not come under suspicion in the case confessed.  Also, DNA tests confirmed that his semen was on one of the socks the victim was wearing 13 years ago.

Morgenthau stopped short of declaring the five innocent but said the confession and the tests create "a probability that the verdicts would have been more favorable to the defendants."  He said no purpose would be served by retrying them.

The decision of whether to throw out the convictions rests with state Justice Charles Tejada, who is expected to rule by Feb. 6.

The attack on a white 28-year-old investment banker, allegedly by a gang of black and Hispanic boys from Harlem, became a symbol of New York City's struggles with crime and race relations in the late 1980s.

The five defendants, who were 14 to 16 at the time of the attack, are mostly in their late 20s and have completed prison terms from six years to 11-1/2 years for the crime.

Throwing out their convictions could clear the way for them to sue the city and would free them from having to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.

Their families and lawyers called for an immediate ruling from the judge.

"We are truly moved by this decision," said Sharonne Salaam, mother of one of the youths.  "But we also feel like we've been victimized, like the Central Park jogger.  We all feel we were denied justice."

Through a spokeswoman, the victim declined comment.  She has recovered from brain injuries, but she has said she remembers nothing of the attack and was unable to help police identify suspects.

The victim was left for dead in a pool of mud and blood on April 19, 1989, after dozens of teenagers descended on he park to mug runner sand bicyclists in a crime spree dubbed "wilding."  She was in a coma for 12 days.

The crime came during a string of racial incidents, including Bernhard Goetz's shooting of black youths on the subway and attacks in the Howard Beach and Bensonhurst neighborhoods.

Some questioned whether the Central Park youths were rounded up because of their skin color and suggested police would not have pursued the case so aggressively had the victim been black or Hispanic.

Police said all five confessed, four of them on video.

"We all took turns getting on top of her," Antron McCray, then 15, told police in one tape.

Defense attorneys said the youths were coerced into bogus confessions by police who kept questioning them for hours.  But until January's confession, little chance existed of overturning the convictions against McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yuself Salaam.

The confession came from Matias Reyes, 31, who is serving a life sentence for raping three women near Central Park and raping and killing a pregnant woman.  He said he broke his long silence after finding religion.

Reyes told investigators he raped the jogger, crushed he skull with a rock and left her for dead.  He said he followed  his usual pattern of acting alone.

DNA test results returned in May corroborated his story, and Morgenthau said one of Reyes' pubic hairs was found at the scene.

The former prosecutor in the case, Linda Fairstein, recently said that she has no doubts the five are guilty and that Reyes finished the assault.

At trial, the only physical evidence connecting the boys to the attack was blond hair found on one of the youths that prosecutors said matched that of the victim.  But Morgenthau said new tests showed the hair was not hers.

DNA could throw verdict - Citing new DNA evidence, New York's district attorney recommended that the five defendants convicted of raping a jogger in Central Park in 1989 be exonerated.  April 19, 1989 - Female jogger raped and left for dead in Central Park.  Five teenage suspects make incriminating statements and are arraigned four days later.  July 16, 1990 - Jogger testifies and has no recollection of attack.  August 18 - After two trials between the five youths, four are convicted with rape and the fifth with sexual abuse.  January 2002 - Serial rapist Matias Reyes confesses to the rape alone.  DNA evidence shows semen samples from the scene belong to him.  December 5 - District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recommends rape convictions to be vacated against all five defendants.