Yusef Salaam, a defendant exonerated in the infamous Central Park rape case, will likely be the next councilman for central Harlem.

With 98% of scanners reporting, Salaam, 49, garnered 50% or 5,403 votes to 25% or 2,706 votes for state Assemblywoman Inez Dickens, 73 and 14% or 1,564 votes for 65-year-old Assemblyman and pastor Al Taylor.  

Salaam is a board member of the Innocence Project and founding member of Justice 4 the Wrongfully Incarcerated.

“I’m here because Harlem you believed in me. Harlem has spoken,” Salaam said during his victory speech.

Salaam and four other defendants were found guilty at trial in the notorious 1989 Central Park rape jogger case — and did between six and 13 years in prison — but their convictions were tossed in 2002 after a career criminal confessed to the attack.

The city paid $40.75 million to the five defendants to settle a civil rights suit in 2014.

He spoke about his ordeal.

“Having to be kidnapped from my home as a 15-year-old child, to be lodged in the belly of the beast. … I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams. I was gifted because I was able to see it for what it really was, a system that was trying to make me believe that I was my ancestor’s worst nightmare. I am here because Harlem, you believed in me.”

Salaam also said he was blessed by having 10 children, 7 girls and 3 boys.

He was backed by Manhattan Democratic leader and Harlemite Keith Wright, whose son, Jordan, was Salaam’s campaign manager.

Salaam’s victory is a blow to Mayor Eric Adams, Congressman Adrian Espaillat and much of the Harlem establishment that rallied around Dickens.

He took some hits during the campaign, including for referring to himself as a “doctor” though not having a real doctorate degree and for touting an endorsement from an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.