The men once known as the Central Park Five—five men who were wrongfully convicted of rape and assault over 30 years ago—filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump on Monday in federal court, alleging the former president acted with “reckless disregard” for the truth when he attacked them during the presidential debate in September.
At the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Trump for his history of racism, bringing up the fact that he refused to apologize for calling for the death penalty for the men—Antron Brown, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam—even after they were exonerated in the 1989 rape and assault of a jogger in Central Park. The five men, now known as the Exonerated Five, had their convictions vacated in 2002, after another man confessed to the crime and DNA evidence confirmed it.
Trump responded to Harris’ comments about the Exonerated Five at the debate by defending himself for taking out full-page ads in New York City newspapers that called for the men to receive the death penalty.
“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 they pled guilty, then they pled not guilty,” Trump said at the debate.
But none of the five men ever pleaded guilty to the raping and beating of the female jogger. And none of the men were ever convicted of murder, as the victim in the Central Park jogging case did not die.
“Defendant Trump’s statements were false and defamatory in numerous respects,” attorneys for the five men wrote in the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs never pled guilty to the Central Park assaults. Plaintiffs all pled not guilty and maintained their innocence throughout their trial and incarceration, as well as after they were released from prison.”
“Defendant Trump falsely stated that Plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime,” the lawsuit added. “These statements are demonstrably false.”
In the lawsuit, attorneys for the men brought up Trump’s long history of lobbing false attacks, saying his comments at the debate were “part of a continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct dating back several years, thus constituting a continuing tort.”
Members of the Exonerated Five spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, where they slammed Trump for his history of lies and racial division.
“Forty-five wanted us unalive. He wanted us dead,” Salaam, who is now a member of the New York City Council, said in his remarks at the DNC, referring to Trump. “Today we are exonerated because the actual perpetrator confessed and DNA proved it. [Trump] says he still stands by the original guilty verdict. He dismisses the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong. He has never changed, and he never will.”
“That man thinks that hate is the animating force in America,” Salaam added. “It is not.”
Trump has a long history of racism.
In 1973, the Department of Justice sued Trump and his father for discrimination, alleging that the men refused to rent their properties to Black people.
He was one of the main voices in the racist “birther” conspiracy theories, which falsely accused former President Barack Obama of not being born in the United States. In 2020, when President Joe Biden chose Harris as his running mate, Trump falsely said that Harris was ineligible because she may not have been born in the U.S.
Trump also fought against the removal of Confederate monuments, as well as against renaming military bases named for Confederate generals.
Earlier this month, Trump said he would restore the name Fort Bragg to the North Carolina military base that was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023. The former Fort Bragg had been named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, a slave owner whose tenure in the Confederacy was marked by failure.
“I think I just learned the secret to winning absolutely and by massive margins. I’m going to promise to you … that we’re going to change the name back to Fort Bragg,” Trump said at a town hall in North Carolina.
