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The men once known as the Central Park Five—five men who were wrongfully convicted of rape and assault over 30 years ago—filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump on Monday in federal court, alleging the former president acted with “reckless disregard” for the truth when he attacked them during the presidential debate in September.
At the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Trump for his history of racism, bringing up the fact that he refused to apologize for calling for the death penalty for the men—Antron Brown, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam—even after they were exonerated in the 1989 rape and assault of a jogger in Central Park. The five men, now known as the Exonerated Five, had their convictions vacated in 2002, after another man confessed to the crime and DNA evidence confirmed it.
Trump responded to Harris’ comments about the Exonerated Five at the debate by defending himself for taking out full-page ads in New York City newspapers that called for the men to receive the death penalty.
“They admitted, they said they pled guilty and I said, ‘Well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately ... And they pled guilty, then they pled not guilty,” Trump said at the debate.
But none of the five men ever pleaded guilty to the raping and beating of the female jogger. And none of the men were ever convicted of murder, as the victim in the Central Park jogging case did not die.
“Defendant Trump’s statements were false and defamatory in numerous respects," attorneys for the five men wrote in the lawsuit. “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.”
“Defendant Trump falsely stated that Plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime,” the lawsuit added. “These statements are demonstrably false."
