A group of men wrongly convicted as the “Central Park Five” have sued former President Donald Trump over his “defamatory” comments about them in the presidential debate.
The men filed a lawsuit against the Republican nominee on Monday, saying Trump made “false and defamatory statements” about them in his confrontation with Vice President Kamala Harris last month.
They are seeking a jury trial to determine damages in a case that has reignited tensions in the campaign just two weeks before Election Day.
“Defendant Trump falsely stated this [at the debate] that the plaintiffs murdered an individual and pleaded guilty to the crime,” the civil lawsuit states.
“These statements are demonstrably incorrect.”
Kamala Harris brought up the Central Park Five in the debate, and Donald Trump responded with comments that led to a lawsuit.
The men wrongly convicted as the ‘Central Park Five’ have sued Donald Trump for defamation in the presidential debate.
The indictment says the five men “never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing.”
It adds: “Furthermore, the victims of the Central Park attacks were not killed.”
Trump’s campaign called the lawsuit a “frivolous” example of “election interference.”
Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise were teenagers when they were accused of raping and assaulting a white jogger in New York City’s Central Park in 1989.
The five, who are black and Latino, said they confessed to the crimes under duress.
They later recanted, pleaded not guilty in court, and were later convicted after a jury trial.
These convictions were overturned in 2002 based on newly discovered DNA evidence.
Less than two weeks after an assault on a jogger in the park for which the teens were charged, Trump paid for a full-page ad calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty for these crimes.
It was one of Trump’s first anti-crime messages, which evolved into his broader America First populist pitch to voters.
During the debate, Harris elevated Trump’s reputation among the five men by saying he had “taken out a full-page ad calling for their execution.”
Trump responded in a statement that forms the basis of the lawsuit.
“They admitted, they said they pled guilty, and I said, ‘well, if they pled guilty, they seriously hurt someone and ended up killing a person… And they pled guilty, and then they pled not guilty,” said Trump.
He appeared to confuse the men’s confessions with admissions of guilt. No victim has died either.
The men’s disdain for Trump dates back to 1989, when he took out a full-page ad (pictured) in four New York City newspapers demanding they receive the death penalty for the rape of a white woman in Central Park. All five men were acquitted in 2002 after serving between six and 13 years in prison, when another inmate confessed to the attack
The trials of the alleged “Central Park Five” perpetrators gripped residents of New York City and beyond in 1990.
Trump’s comments were “part of an ongoing pattern of extreme and outrageous behavior dating back several years” against the men, the complaint said.
Their lawsuit, which alleges claims of defamation and emotional distress, seeks damages in excess of $75,000, with total compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to CNBC that it was “just another frivolous election interference lawsuit.”
The papers were “filed by desperate left-wing activists in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris’ dangerous liberal agenda and failing campaign,” Cheung added.
The lawsuit notes that the men were convicted at trials for a series of assaults that occurred in Central Park in April 1989.
They were between 14 and 16 years old at the time and spent years behind bars after their conviction.
A year after they were acquitted, the men sued New York City for false arrest, malicious prosecution and racially motivated conspiracy.
The city settled the lawsuit more than a decade later by agreeing to pay the men $41 million, a deal Trump called a “disgrace.”