Members of the “Central Park Five,” now known as the “Exonerated Five,” have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over false claims he made about them during last month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris.
In 1989, Trump took out an ad calling for the return of the death penalty in the state of New York after five Black and Latino teenagers were falsely accused of a brutal assault. And he has continued pushing false claims about them even after they were exonerated. When Harris called him out for this at the debate, Trump falsely claimed that the five had pleaded guilty.
Here’s the quote:
A lot of people ... 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.’
The lawsuit, which requests that a trial be held to determine damages, notes several inaccuracies in Trump’s remarks — none of the teens pleaded guilty before they were wrongfully convicted, for instance, and the victim of the crime didn’t die. (A Trump campaign spokesperson dismissed the lawsuit as “frivolous.”)
Their stories are a reminder of the threat to equal justice under the law if Trump returns to the White House.
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