Donald Trump has been sued for defamation by a group of men who were wrongfully convicted of raping a jogger in New York City’s Central Park in 1989.
At the time, the real-estate mogul bought full-page ads in major newspapers with a headline demanding “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY.”
The wrongful convictions of the so-called “Central Park Five” were vacated in 2002, and the city paid $41 million in 2014 to settle a civil rights lawsuit.
Trump has not only refused to recant or apologize for those statements, he has also falsely claimed that the men pleaded guilty and suggested that they had “killed a person, ultimately.”
Those men, now named the “Exonerated Five,” have accused the former president of making “false and defamatory” statements about them in a federal lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania on Monday.
Trump delivered his latest comments during his first and only presidential debate with Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on September 10.
“Let’s remember, this is the same individual who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five,” Harris said during the debate. “Took out a full-page ad calling for their execution.”
In response, Trump said “they come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five.”
Bloomberg was not mayor at the time. It was Ed Koch, who had refuted Trump’s statements at the time, saying “nobody I know of in Western society believes that under any circumstances would you ever impose the death penalty on juveniles.”
“They admitted,” Trump said at the debate. “They said, they pled guilty. And I said, ‘well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately.’ And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”
One of those teens, Yusef Salaam, now 50 years old, spent nearly seven years in prison for his wrongful conviction. Last year, he was elected to New York’s City Council, representing Harlem.
He is the lead plaintiff in the latest defamation lawsuit against the former president, who is accused of a pattern of “extreme and outrageous conduct” towards the exonerated men for decades, as outlined in the complaint.
A jury determined that Trump defamed E Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, and then lied in statements denying he ever met her. He continues to deny the claims, despite a jury finding him liable for sexual abuse.
“Plaintiffs suffered harm, including severe emotional distress and reputational damage, as a direct result of Defendant Trump’s false and defamatory statements at the September 10 debate, as well as his continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct,” according to the lawsuit from the exonerated Central Park Five.
Their story has been the subject of a Ken Burns documentary and the acclaimed series When They See Us by Ava DuVernay, which explored a broken judicial system and the fog of racism and hate that surrounded the case and which Trump exploited.
Trump also came face to face with Salaam in the moments after the debate, when the former president visited the so-called spin room.
“Will you apologize to the Exonerated Five? Sir, what do you say to a member of the Central Park Five, sir?” Salaam shouted out. “President Trump,I’m Yusef Salaam, one of the Exonerated Five. How are you doing?”
Trump replied: “You’re on my side then.”
“No, no, no, I’m not on your side,” Salaam responded.
On August 22, Salaam and three other exonerated men Korey Wise, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson stood on stage at the Democratic National Convention to endorse Harris.
“Forty-five wanted us unalive,” said Salaam, noting Trump’s nickname as the 45th president.
