After a highly profile search for suspects and subsequent arrests, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said that his office is dropping allegations that a young woman was raped by multiple teenagers in a Brownsville playground, citing "multiple inconsistent accounts" and the woman's desire not go further with the criminal case.

The incident allegedly occurred on January 7th, around 9 p.m., when the 18-year-old woman and her father, 39, were in Osborn Playground. The pair initially told police that while there, a group of five teenage boys approached them with a gun and ordered the father to leave; then the teens allegedly took turns raping the woman and fled before the father returned with the police.

In the days after the incident was publicized, it was revealed that the father apparently took 20 minutes to get help and didn't tell bodega clerks that his daughter was being assaulted—he just said that he needed to use the phone. One clerk said that he appeared drunk.

After the teens were arrested, two claimed that the father and daughter had been having sex in the playground when they got there. One of the suspects reportedly had a cellphone video that showed the teens talking to the victim, indicating that she may have consented to the encounter.

The suspects were eventually released without bail. Yesterday, DA Thompson said:

Working closely with the NYPD, my office has thoroughly investigated disturbing and very serious allegations of a gang rape at gunpoint last month inside the Osborn Playground in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.

The complainant, as well as her father, provided multiple inconsistent accounts to NYPD Detectives and to experienced Special Victims prosecutors about important material facts in this case. The complainant has recanted her allegations of forcible sexual assault and the existence of a gun, and she does not wish to pursue criminal charges against any of the defendants. She also refuses to cooperate with any prosecution against her father, who was engaging in sexual conduct with her.

That night, this young woman’s father and the five young men engaged in conduct that was reprehensible and wrong, but because of the lack of reliable evidence, criminal charges simply cannot be sustained.

It is my fervent hope that this young woman gets all the support that she needs going forward. My office, including our victim advocates who have been working with this young woman, stand ready to provide her with any assistance she may need.

The NY Times reports that the woman had a "deeply troubled childhood in foster care" after being taken from her mother, who was a drug user: "When she turned 18, the woman, whose mother had died, learned her biological father’s identity and contacted him through Facebook, the officials said. Last July, she came to New York to meet him."

Further, according to the Times, "Aside from her lack of cooperation, considered vital to most sex-crimes inquiries, the prosecutors have no evidence that the woman resisted sexual contact... Prosecutors are unable to charge the woman’s father with incest because of her lack of cooperation, and even if they could, they were concerned about the impact such a prosecution might have on her well-being."

Ken Montgomery, lawyer for one of the suspects, said, "We are thankful to the District Attorney's office for the thoughtful and prudent time they took to fully investigate this case. They did what the NYPD, City Hall and so-called community leaders didn't do, they didn't judge these young men, and investigated what actually happened. Now separate from the charges being dismissed there is a lesson to be learned. It is unhealthy to have sexual relations in parks even if it's consensual. We don't want our young men to grow up thinking this is okay, because it's not."

However, another suspect's lawyer, Abdula Greene, took issue with the DA's statement, "There wasn't criminal wrongdoing ... That's why I have to take pause with the statement. It says that their conduct was wrong and reprehensible, and then you have a recantation that she was forced and you have a recantation that there was a weapon. It says to me there was no wrongdoing."