Central Park Five Sue Trump For His ‘False and Defamatory’ Comments Attacking Them at Debate

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

The “Central Park Five,” also known as the “Exonerated Five” — a group of Black and Latino men who were wrongly accused of brutal rapes and assaults that occurred in 1989 and whose convictions were later overturned — have sued former President Donald Trump for comments he made during his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown, and Korey Wise were between 14 and 16 years old in 1989 when they were arrested and accused of raping and violently assaulting a woman in Central Park, amid growing fears in New York City over crime. They were interrogated by the police for at least seven hours without attorneys and then eventually confessed. All five recanted these confessions two weeks later, but were still each convicted at trial and sentenced to prison. Trump was a prominent voice adding to the outrage during this period, paying for full-page ads in four New York newspapers calling for the perpetrators to get the death penalty.

The Central Park Five’s convictions were later vacated in 2002 after another man, Matias Reyes, confessed to the crimes and his confession was confirmed with DNA evidence. The men, who had spent years in prison, filed a lawsuit accusing the NYC police and prosecutors of false arrest, malicious prosecution, and a racially motivated conspiracy to deprive them of their civil rights, eventually settling for nearly $41 million.

In the years since, Trump has been unrepentant for his comments about the Central Park Five, continuing to insist they were guilty and refusing to apologize for his newspaper ads.

The ex-president again reiterated this view at his debate with Harris after she brought up the case in response to his comments that she recently “happened to turn Black.” Harris accused Trump of being someone who “consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people,” bringing up how he had been “investigated because he refused to rent property to Black families,” “spread birther lies about the first Black President of the United States,” and “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.”

Trump replied by claiming that former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg “agreed with me on the Central Park Five,” adding, “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.”

This is not accurate; the victim was badly injured but survived. The five men all pled not guilty and steadfastly maintained their innocence during their years in prison. And while Bloomberg had refused to settle the lawsuits — they were eventually settled after Bill de Blasio ran for mayor making a campaign promise to settle the cases and did so after he was elected —  Bloomberg had been defending the NYPD as having acted “appropriately” at the time, not trying to deny the DNA evidence or claim the men were not exonerated.

In the lawsuit, the five men say Trump’s debate comments were “false and defamatory” and they describe in detail the “hours of coercive interrogation, under duress, with no attorney present and often without a parent or guardian present,” eventually making statements in which they “falsely admitted” to the crimes and which statements were “contradictory, unreliable and inconsistent with each other and with the objective evidence of the assaults.”

The complaint also includes a description of an interaction between Trump and one of the plaintiffs, Yusef Salaam, in the spin room after the debate:

57. Plaintiff Salaam attended the September 10 debate in person and was in the room when Defendant Trump made his false and defamatory statements.

58. After the debate, Defendant Trump passed through the post-debate “spin room” fielding questions from attendees.

59. As Defendant Trump approached Plaintiff Salaam, other attendees asked Defendant Trump, “Will you apologize to the Exonerated Five?” and “Sir, what do you say to a member of the Central Park Five, sir?”

60. When Defendant Trump did not respond, Plaintiff Salaam said, “President Trump, I’m Yusef Salaam, one of the Exonerated Five. How are you doing?”

61. Defendant Trump responded, “Ah, you’re on my side then.”

62. Plaintiff Salaam then said, “No, no, no, I’m not on your side.”

63. Defendant Trump proceeded to wave his hand at Plaintiff Salaam, smile and walk away.

64. Plaintiff Salaam was attempting to politely dialogue with Defendant Trump about the false and defamatory statements that Defendant Trump had made about Plaintiffs less than an hour earlier, but Defendant Trump refused to engage with him in dialogue.

The complaint brings three causes of action against Trump: defamation, false light, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages.

UPDATE 12:45 pm ET: The Trump campaign sent a statement from spokesman Stephen Cheung calling the complaint “another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists.”