Donald Trump has been mired in controversy in the Central Park 5 case for over three decades. In 1989, Five Black and Latino teens known as The Central Park 5 were unfairly convicted of raping and attacking a jogging victim in Central Park.
Donald Trump has now been sued by the Central Park 5 for making damaging and untrue remarks like falsely claiming they killed someone and pleaded guilty at a Philadelphia presidential debate.
Now better known as the Exonerated Five, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, and Korey Wise were imprisoned during their teen years after being falsely convicted of crimes they had not committed.
The Central Park 5 were exonerated of all charges in 2002 after fresh DNA evidence and a confession from the actual criminal, Matias Reyes proved their innocence. Since then, they have been trying to reconstruct their lives.
What did Trump say about the Central Park 5?
A portion of the presidential debate on September 10, viewed by approximately 67 million people, was devoted to the topic of 'race and politics'. In this segment, Kamala Harris brought to light that years ago, Donald Trump had called for an advertisement to be placed in The New York Times. She said:
"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."
Despite having been cleared of all the charges, in response, Trump was adamant in claiming that the Central Park 5 had pled guilty and said:
“[T]hey 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.”
Because of his statements when discussing The Central Park 5, Trump is now facing a lawsuit that includes three counts: defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Scott MacFarlane a CBS news correspondent has shared snippets from the lawsuit on his X account.
The lawsuit mentions that Trump had taken out a full-page ad in the New York newspapers which:
“Alluded to the assaults in Central Park without specifically identifying the suspects and called for the City of New York to '[s]end a message loud and clear to those who would murder our citizens and terrorize New York—BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY AND BRING BACK OUR POLICE,'”
Dismissing the lawsuit as an attempt to foil Trump's reputation before the elections, his spokesperson Steven Cheung said:
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“This is just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists, in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris’s dangerously liberal agenda and failing campaign.”
He reiterated that Kamala Harris’s supporters are trying hard to use legal tactics to disrupt the election, but those efforts aren’t working. He believes that Trump is doing well and will achieve a significant victory for the American people on November 5th.
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