Republican Donald Trump sued by Central Park Five for defamation

The men formerly known as the Central Park Five filed a defamation lawsuit against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before they were acquitted on Monday.

Two weeks before the election, 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. 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 withdrew their confessions, 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 the crime, Trump bought a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the teenagers to be executed. 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 now 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.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published by PTI)