Central Park Five to sue Donald Trump
Five men, known as the Central Park Five, who were wrongly convicted as teenagers, are suing Donald Trump for defamation after he falsely claimed they were responsible for the crime. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Philadelphia, and cited a number of statements Trump made about them during his debate with Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris blasted the former president and Republican nominee for taking out an ad in1989 calling for the then-teenage Central Park Five 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 civil suit said. “Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing. Further, the victims of the Central Park assaults were not killed,” the complaint said.
The suit alleges that Trump’s conduct towards the Central Park Five at the debate “was part of a continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct dating back several years, thus constituting a continuing tort.”
The men, who now call themselves as the Exonerated Five, are Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise. Salaam is a member of the New York City Council.
Less than two weeks after a sexual assault on a jogger in Central Park for which they were charged, Trump took out full-page ads in New York newspapers that read “Bring back the death penalty and bring back our police.” The men were the teenagers convicted at trials of a series of assaults that took place in New York’s Central Park in April 1989. They were between 14 and 16 years at the time and were wrongly convicted, spending years in prison.
The suit alleges claims of defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It requests damages of over $75,000.
“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,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, in a statement provided by the campaign, said. “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.”
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