The five men who make up the Central Park Five, and now call themselves the Exonerated Five, have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over his remarks during the presidential debate last month.
The lawsuit focuses on the Sept. 10 debate in Pennsylvania, where Trump said that the five men — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — pleaded guilty when they were tried in connection with the assault and rape of a woman who had been running in Central Park on April 19, 1989, and that the victim had died.
The complaint said Trump’s statements are “demonstrably false,” adding, “Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing. Further the victims of the Central Park assaults were not killed.” The complaint further said that the men,now in their 50s,have “suffered injuries as a result of Defendant Trump’s false and defamatory statements.”
The five, who were teenagers when they were indicted, had maintained their innocence throughout their trials and incarceration. In their trials, they were charged with the assault of the female jogger as well as other assaults and robberies that occurred in Central Park.
After years in prison, the five were freed in 2002 when DNA evidence connected a different man—a serial rapist—to the assault. In the end, the city consented to pay $41 million to the men who were cleared in a court settlement.
The case was subsequently heavily scrutinized as the five were claimed they were intimidated and coerced into making false confessions.
