Acquitted New York men known as the “Central Park Five” sued former President Donald Trump in federal court in Philadelphia for defamation over a statement he made during last month’s presidential debate at the National Constitution Center.
During the Sept. 10 debate, Trump repeated the claim that five men falsely accused of the infamous and brutal 1989 assault and rape “seriously harmed a person.”
“They admitted it. They said. They pleaded guilty,” Trump said during the debate. “And I said that if they plead guilty, they would seriously harm the person, eventually kill the person, and if they pleaded guilty. Then they admitted we weren’t guilty.”
The complaint, filed Monday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, claims this is a false and defamatory statement because the men – Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown (formerly McCray) and Korey Wise – pleaded not guilty in 1989. and maintained their innocence throughout the trial and prison sentence. Moreover, none of the victims of the Central Park attacks on the night of April 19, 1989 died.
“Defendant Trump’s conduct during the September 10 debate was extreme and outrageous and was intended to cause plaintiffs severe emotional distress,” the complaint states.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Five men, ages 14 to 16, were charged with the 1989 Central Park robbery and rape of jogger Trisha Meili, among other assaults that night.
The teenagers were separated and subjected to hours of police interrogation, during which four of them provided written and video statements in which they admitted their role in the attack on the jogger. However, after hearing the allegations, the teenagers pleaded not guilty.
The Central Park Five case was used as an example of how police can extract confessions during interrogations.
Decades later, serial rapist Matias Reyes pleaded guilty to rape and assault, and in 2002, the convictions of falsely accused black and Latino men were overturned. DNA evidence confirmed that Reyes attacked Meili.
In 2014, New York City paid the Exonerated Five a $41 million settlement.
At the time, the case led to increased racial tensions in New York as homicides rose in the late 1980s. Eleven days after the attack, Trump took out full-page ads in the city’s major newspapers demanding the death penalty for the five teenagers.
“Reinstate the death penalty. Bring back our police,” reads the ads signed by Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned the ads during the race relations portion of the debate.
“Let us remember that this is the same person who took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five innocent young black and Latino boys, the Central Park Five,” Harris said.
Trump responded that the Harris-Biden administration is divisive and that Harris is returning to a decades-old problem.
“This is the most divisive presidency in the history of our country. There has never been anything like this. They are destroying our country,” Trump said. “And they come up with things like what she just said, many, many years ago, when many people, including Mayor Bloomberg, agreed with me about the Central Park Five.”
The lawsuit notes that Ed Koch, not Michael Bloomberg, was mayor of New York at the time of the attack, and that Trump was highly critical of Koch’s response at the time.
Video provided by lawyers shows that one of the acquitted men attended the September debate in Philadelphia and later tried to ask Trump about his “centrifuge” statement.
“President Trump, I’m Yusef Salaam, one of the ‘acquitted five’, how are you?”
“Oh, so you’re on my side,” Trump replied.
“No, no, no, I’m not on your side,” says Salaam, a Democratic member of the New York City Council, as Trump smiles and walks away.
Shanin Specter of the Philadelphia law firm Kline and Specter, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the five men, said Monday that a federal judge cannot require the defendant to retract his testimony or apologize.
“All that remains is a trial where these men can once again clear their names and obtain monetary compensation from defendant Trump,” Specter said.
The attorney expects the lawsuit to move quickly, calling the federal court in Philadelphia a “rocket penalty” because of its speed. Judges typically expect discovery to be completed within six months.
