By Darren Lyn
HOUSTON, United States (AA) - The five men wrongfully convicted in a 1989 jogger rape case in New York, known as the Central Park Five, sued former President Donald Trump on Monday for defamation, according to news outlets.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court and stated that Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, defamed them during the Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, by falsely claiming that the men killed someone and pleaded guilty.
Court filings cited several statements Trump made about the men after Harris blasted the former president for taking out an ad in 1989 calling for the then-teen defendants to be executed.
"Defendant Trump falsely stated (at the debate) that Plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime. These statements are demonstrably false," the complaint said.
"Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing," the civil suit continued. "Further, the victims of the Central Park assaults were not killed."
The plaintiffs in the case, who now refer to themselves as the Exonerated Five, after they were exonerated of their accused crimes in 2002, are Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise. Salaam is now a member of the New York City Council.
The men are claiming damages of more than $75,000, with total compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial.
- Trump's 1989 call for execution
"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," said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung in a statement.
"The frantic lawfare efforts by Lyin’ Kamala’s allies to interfere in the election are going nowhere and President Trump is dominating as he marches to a historic win for the American people on November 5th,” Cheung continued, referring to Election Day, just over two weeks away.
The lawsuit notes that the men were convicted as teenagers in trials over a series of assaults that happened in New York's Central Park in April 1989. They were between 14 and 16 years old at the time and spent years in prison after their wrongful convictions.
After all five men were exonerated in 2002 based on newly discovered DNA evidence, they sued the city of New York for false arrest, malicious prosecution, and racially motivated conspiracy.
The city settled the suit more than a decade later by agreeing to pay the men $41 million, a deal that Trump called a “disgrace” in a newspaper editorial after the settlement was made.
The exchange at the presidential debate took place when Harris said, as the suit noted: "Let’s remember, this is the same individual (Trump) who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times (in 1989) 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 responded to Harris by saying: "They admitted – they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately."