The men formerly known as the Central Park Five before they were acquitted filed a defamation lawsuit against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday.
Two weeks before Election Day, the group accused the former president of making “false and defamatory statements” about them during last month’s presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. The group is requesting a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages.
“Defendant Trump falsely represented that plaintiffs had killed a person and pleaded guilty to the crime. These statements are patently false,” the group wrote in a federal complaint.
The men are upset because Trump has essentially “defamed them in front of 67 million people, causing them to once again try to clear their names,” co-lead attorney Shanin Specter said in an email to The Associated Press.
Specter did not comment when asked if there were any concerns. Some see the lawsuit as purely political because of the group’s support for Harris. “We are seeking redress in the courts,” Specter said.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung condemned the lawsuit as “another frivolous election interference lawsuit filed by desperate left-wing activists in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris’ dangerously liberal agenda and failed campaign.”
Representatives for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise were teenagers when they were accused of raping and beating a white jogger in Central Park in 1989. All five, black and Latino, stated that they confessed to the crimes under duress. They later dropped out, pleading not guilty in court, and were later convicted after jury trials. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after another person pleaded guilty to the crime.
After committing the crime, Trump bought a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. At the time, many New Yorkers believed that Trump’s ad resembled a call to execute teenagers. The jogger case was Trump’s first foray into tough-on-crime policies, which preceded his fully populist political persona. Since then, dog whistles and overtly racist rhetoric have been a fixture of Trump’s public life.
During the Sept. 10 debate, Trump misrepresented key facts in the case when Harris raised the issue.
“They confessed, they said they pleaded guilty, and I said, ‘Well, if they plead guilty, they seriously harmed the person and ultimately killed the person… And they pleaded guilty and then pleaded not guilty. guilt,” Trump said.
Apparently he was confusing a confession with an admission of guilt. Additionally, no victims died.
The acquitted Five, including Salaam, who is now a New York City councilman, are campaigning for Harris. Some of them spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, calling on Trump to never apologize for the newspaper ad.
They also joined civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton for a bus tour to encourage voting.
Previous defamation lawsuits involving Trump have resulted in significant amounts being awarded to plaintiffs. In January, a jury awarded $83.3 million to advice columnist E. Jean Carroll over Trump’s sustained social media attacks on her claims that he sexually assaulted her in 1996 at a Manhattan department store. In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing her and returned a $5 million verdict.
