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Jimmy Williams
In a new legal battle, members of the “Central Park Five” filed a defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump on Monday, accusing him of making “false, misleading and defamatory” statements about their 1989 case during a presidential debate on Sept. 10. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeks monetary damages for the emotional distress and reputational damage caused by Trump’s comments.
The lawsuit, brought forward by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown, and Korey Wise, revisits Trump’s controversial role in the aftermath of the Central Park jogger case. The five men, who were teenagers at the time, were wrongfully accused of the brutal rape of a female jogger in Central Park in 1989. They were convicted and spent years in prison before being exonerated in 2002 when another man confessed to the crime, confirmed through DNA evidence.
During the September debate, Trump was responding to a statement by Vice President Kamala Harris about his full-page newspaper ad at the time, which had called for the death penalty for the accused teens. Trump, in defending his past actions, stated: “[T]hey admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately.”
The lawsuit points out several inaccuracies in Trump’s statements: none of the five ever pleaded guilty, none of the victims of the assaults in Central Park were killed, and at the time of the attacks, New York City’s mayor was Ed Koch, not Michael Bloomberg as Trump had suggested.
“Defendant Trump’s conduct at the September 10 debate was extreme and outrageous, and it was intended to cause severe emotional distress to Plaintiffs,” the lawsuit claims.
Trump’s legal team has yet to respond to the lawsuit, but his campaign spokesperson dismissed the case, calling it “just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists.”
One of the plaintiffs, Yusef Salaam, who is now a member of the New York City Council, was present at the debate and attempted to confront Trump afterward. Salaam shouted questions, asking, “Will you apologize to the Exonerated Five?” but Trump did not engage meaningfully, reportedly responding, “Ah, you’re on my side then,” to which Salaam replied, “No, no, no, I’m not on your side.”
The five men’s convictions were vacated in 2002 after the true perpetrator, Matias Reyes, confessed to the crime, and their lawsuit against New York City was settled for $41 million in 2014. Although the city did not admit any wrongdoing, the case remains a symbol of racial injustice in the U.S. criminal justice system.
Salaam, now representing northern Manhattan on the New York City Council, continues to advocate for justice reform, using his platform to call for accountability and healing after his wrongful conviction.
