Central Park Five sue Trump for defamation

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The five men who make up the Central Park Five, and now call themselves the Exonerated Five, have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over his remarks during the presidential debate last month.

The lawsuit focuses on the Sept. 10 debate in Pennsylvania, where Trump said that the five men — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — pleaded guilty when they were tried in connection with the assault and rape of a woman who had been running in Central Park on April 19, 1989, and that the victim had died.

During the debate he said: "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."

At the time of the trials, each had pleaded not guilty and the victim of the attack survived.

The complaint said Trump's statements are "demonstrably false," adding, "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 further said that the men, now in their 50s, have "suffered injuries as a result of Defendant Trump’s false and defamatory statements."

The five, who were teenagers when they were indicted, had maintained their innocence throughout their trials and incarceration. In their trials, they were charged with the assault of the female jogger as well as other assaults and robberies that occurred in Central Park.

The five spent years behind bars before being exonerated in 2002 after DNA evidence linked another man, a serial rapist, to the attack. The city ultimately agreed in a legal settlement to pay the exonerated men $41 million.

The case was subsequently heavily scrutinized as the five were claimed they were intimidated and coerced into making false confessions.

The case came at a time of heightened racial tensions and when crime dominated headlines. Trump, then a real estate mogul, had taken out large ads in newspapers calling for New York to bring back the death penalty.

The complaint noted that Salaam, a New York City Council Member representing District Nine, was in attendance at the debate and was in the room when Trump made those statements.

The five men did not ask for a specific amount in relief, but asked that a trial be held to determine damages.

Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said Monday: “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.”

Shanin Specter, an attorney for the five, said Monday: “Unfortunately the civil justice system doesn’t permit us to require Mr. Trump to apologize or retract his statement. The most that we can obtain are money damages both to compensate these five men for Mr. Trump’s damaging their reputations and for punishment of Mr. Trump for making these statements.”

While he said it would be "helpful" if Trump apologized or retracted his statements, he said, “we are not holding our breath for that.”

Theyre suing him for "defamation". Not "deformation".

Humans can be un-famed. Car fenders can be "deformed".

I try not to be a stickler for grammar and spelling, but this is an especially disturbing one. OP, can you please correct it?