NEW YORK—Over two decades after their exoneration, the fight to publicly maintain the innocence of the Central Park Five, now known as the Exonerated Five, continues.
In recent efforts, attorneys representing members of the Central Park Five filed a defamation lawsuit on October 21 against former U.S. president and current 2024 Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump over comments he made during the ABC News presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10.
The suit, filed in a federal district court in Pennsylvania, accuses Mr. Trump of knowingly spreading “false, misleading, and defamatory” information about their 1989 case in the debate viewed by more than 67 million people nationwide.
The Central Park Five is comprised of five individual Black and Latino, now men. Yusef Salaam, now a New York City Councilman; Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise—all of whom are listed as plaintiffs in the suit.
As teenagers, they were wrongfully convicted for the rape of a White female jogger and a series of other crimes perpetuated in Central Park, New York City, on the night of April 19, 1989. Given sentences of up to 10-15 years, the five each served 5-12 years in prison for crimes they were innocent of.
In 2002, due to newly discovered DNA evidence and a confession from the true perpetrator—a Riker Island inmate convicted of serial rape and murder, Matias Reyes,—a New York Supreme Court justice vacated the convictions of the Central Park Five, thus exonerating them of all charges. Consequently, they now prefer to be known as the Exonerated Five.
In 2003, the men filed a civil lawsuit against New York City for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination and emotional distress. After over a decade-long standstill, the city settled for $41 million.
Still, despite their proven innocence and settlement, Mr. Trump continues to maintain and promote false claims of their guilt—such actions the lawsuit describes as a continual “pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct” which allegedly constitutes as “a continuing tort.”
This alleged pattern most notably started on May 1, 1989, when, then a prominent real estate mogul, Mr. Trump took out $85,000-worth full-page ads calling to “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY, BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” as an indirect response to the case of the Central Park Five.
The ads notoriously ran in New York dailies, including, The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, and New York Newsday, for weeks and contributed to the harsh public perception of the then teens.
As noted in the lawsuit, during the Sept. 10 presidential debate, in a segment centering on race and politics in America, Vice President and Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris criticized Mr. Trump for having a history of poor race relations.
In doing so, she referred to the infamous ads, stating in part, “… let’s remember, this is the same individual [Trump] 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. Took out a full-page ad calling for their execution.”
To combat his political opponent, Mr. Trump stated in part of a longer response, “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.
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 if they pled guilty—then they pled we’re not guilty.”
The lawsuit argues that the former president’s remarks were “false and defamatory in numerous respects” as none of the five ever pleaded guilty, and the victims of the 1989 assaults were not killed.
Additionally, the lawsuit also claims that the five men, “suffered injuries as a result of Defendant Trump’s false and defamatory statements,” thus, causing them to “bring this lawsuit to obtain redress.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, criticized the lawsuit as “another frivolous left-wing attempt to interfere in the upcoming presidential election.”
The 18-page filing brings up counts of defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, from which demands the courts to award the plaintiffs with compensatory and punitive damages, along with pre-and post-judgment interest, costs and such other relief in amounts to be determined at trial as the court deems just.
The Exonerated Five members have yet to comment at this time.