The five black and Latino men known as the Central Park Five for an attack committed in that New York park in 1989 have sued Donald Trump in federal court, alleging that he defamed them during the televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last month. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia where the debate took place, claims that Trump’s defamatory statements are part of a “continuing pattern” of false statements intended to “make men suffer.”
The five were wrongly convicted as teenagers and later exonerated in the assault and rape of a white jogger in Central Park. They spent years in prison, between seven and thirteen depending on the case, before being acquitted by DNA evidence and another person’s confession. The five men, who now prefer to be called the Acquitted Five, received $41 million in a civil settlement with the city of New York a decade ago. One of them was elected councilor of the New York City Council in the last municipal elections.
Two weeks before the election, the group has accused the former president of making “false and defamatory statements” about them during last month’s presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. The quintet requests a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages. “Defendant Trump falsely claimed that Plaintiffs killed a person and pleaded guilty to the crime. “These statements are demonstrably false,” the federal lawsuit reads.
“(Trump) defamed them in front of 67 million people (the television audience of the debate), which has pushed them to clear their names again,” explained their lawyer, Shanin Specter, to the Associated Press agency. “They have made it look like they were guilty when it has been proven that they are not, it is terrible to be accused of these things again,” Specter added, confirming that the plaintiffs will seek redress in court.
During last month’s heated debate, Harris said that shortly after the 1989 event, Trump took out a full-page newspaper ad calling for the death penalty for those guilty. The Democratic candidate added that this advertising demonstrated Trump’s inveterate racismwhich has been “trying to use race to divide the American people” for some time.
Trump responded by claiming, falsely, that the five men had pleaded guilty and that the victim had died following the attack. The two accusations are completely unfounded. “They admitted — that’s what they said — that they had pleaded guilty,” Trump replied. “And I said, well, they did plead guilty, they seriously injured a person, they ultimately killed a person…” he argued in his disjointed and confusing syntax.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the lawsuit “another frivolous election interference, brought by desperate left-wing activists, in an attempt to distract the American people from the dangerous liberal agenda of Kamala Harris and her failed campaign.” “Dangerous liberal agenda” is the most frequent catchphrase of the Republican campaign to refer to the Democratic candidate.
The story of the Central Park Five, which has had a wide coverage thanks to several films and documentaries, was for years a nightmare for its protagonists, Yusef Salaam – the councilman -, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, who were barely teenagers when they were accused of beating and raping a white jogger in Central Park. The five, who are black and Latino, stated that they had confessed to the crimes under duress. They later recanted, pleading not guilty in court, and were subsequently convicted after separate jury trials. Their convictions were annulled in 2002 after another person confessed to being the perpetrator of the attack.
Four of them, Councilman Salaam, Korey Wise, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, spoke alongside Reverend Al Sharpton on the fourth day of the Democratic national convention held in August in Chicagoin support of Harris’ presidential candidacy and your number twoTim Walz.
