The Central Park 5 Monday filed a federal defamation suit against former President Trump over lies he told about them during last month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris.
City Councilman Yusef Salaam and four other exonerated Black and Latino men accuse Trump of repeating his false claim that they pleaded guilty to the notorious 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park.
In fact, the men were convicted of the attack and spent years in prison before being cleared when DNA evidence proved they did not commit the crime and another man confessed.
“(The men) never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing,” alleges the suit, which was filed in Philadelphia where the Sept. 10 debate took place.
“(They) suffered injuries as a result of Trump’s false and defamatory statements,” the suit further says.
The five men are asking for a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages.
The Republican former president refuses to acknowledge the five men — Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — were exonerated or apologize for demanding their execution in a full-page newspaper ad after they were arrested.
During the debate, Trump even claimed the Central Park jogger was murdered in the case, which is not true.
“They pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately,” he said at the debate. “They pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”
Salaam and his friends were released from prison in 2022. He successfully ran for a heavily Democratic City Council seat in Harlem last year.
The inspirational figure appeared at the Democratic National Convention last summer where he trashed Trump and endorsed Harris for president.
“Forty-five wanted us un-alive,” Salaam said, referring to Trump, the 45th president. “He wanted us dead.”
“He has never changed and he never will,” added Salaam.
The men known as the Central Park Five were teenagers when they were accused of the attack on a white woman jogger.
After the crime, Trump purchased a full-page newspaper ad, calling for the accused teens to be executed.
Trump was then mostly known as a flashy A-list celebrity real estate mogul. The ad amounted to his first racially tinged political stand.
