Five men collectively dubbed the Central Park Five sued Donald Trump for defamation Monday after he falsely said during the presidential debate that they had pleaded guilty to a brutal rape 35 years ago, despite the fact that they had their convictions overturned.
Lawyers for the five allege in the lawsuit that the former president acted with “reckless disregard” for the truth and with intent to cause “severe emotional distress” by claiming during the 10 September debate that they had “killed a person” in the notorious incident and admitted their guilt. The five men have always denied the crime and were later exonerated.
Trump’s comments came during a segment of the Philadelphia debate dedicated to race relations, after Kamala Harris recalled that he took out a full-page ad in the New York Times and other newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty at the height of the public outcry over the case in 1989.
Responding, Trump said: “[T]hey come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five.
“They admitted – they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately … Then they pled: ‘We’re not guilty.’”
In fact, the five – Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise – all pleaded not guilty to the crime, which took place when they were minors, aged between 14 and 16.
The victim, Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old investment banker, was seriously injured in the attack but survived.
The five were convicted and jailed. But in 2002, they were released after a belated confession by Matias Reyes, a serial murderer and rapist, was confirmed by DNA evidence. The men were subsequently given $41m in a civil action.
“Defendant Trump’s conduct at the September 10 debate was extreme and outrageous, and it was intended to cause severe emotional distress to Plaintiffs,” stated the lawsuit filed with the US district court in eastern Pennsylvania.
It added: “Plaintiffs never pled guilty to the Central Park assaults. Plaintiffs all pled not guilty and maintained their innocence throughout their trial and incarceration, as well as after they were released from prison.”
The suit also pointed out that no one was killed in the attack and that Trump had misstated the name of New York’s mayor at the time, who was Ed Koch.
Trump originally waded into the case after the arrest of the five youths, who were Black and Hispanic, by taking out a full-page newspaper ad that read: “Bring back the death penalty and bring back our police!” Contrary to Trump’s claim at the debate, Koch did not agree with Trump’s position in the ad.
The lawsuit stated that one of the five, Yousef Salaam, now a New York city council member, was present at the debate and approached Trump, asking him to apologise to “the exonerated five”.
Trump turned to him and said: “Are you on my side then,” to which Salaam replied: “No, no, no, I’m not on your side,” according to the court filing.
It is not the first time Trump has insisted that five were guilty despite their exoneration. In 2014, he called the damages awarded to them “the heist of the century” in an article for the New York Daily News. In 2019, while president, he told journalists in the White House that “you have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign dismissed the suit as “just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit, filed by desperate leftwing activists,” according to ABC News, which broadcast last month’s debate.
