The five men exonerated in connection with the Central Park jogger case have called on a federal judge to put a stop to what they described as an ongoing campaign of falsehoods being leveled against them by former president Donald Trump.
Since May 1, 1989, Trump has publicized his “hate” for the five Black and brown teenagers accused by law enforcement of nearly killing a young white woman in a brutal sexual assault that took place in the famous Manhattan park.
For decades, Trump has called the men “murderers” and “criminals.” During last month’s presidential debate, Trump falsely said they pleaded guilty, pushing the men — known as the Central Park Five or Exonerated Five — to file a federal lawsuit against the former president on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
“It would be good if Mr. Trump would retract his statement and apologize but we aren’t holding our breath for that,” Shanin Specter, a lead attorney for the Exonerated Five, wrote in an email to Capital B.
In the only debate between the candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris accused Trump of using his notoriety and wealth to divide the country. She reminded the audience that he spent $85,000 for four full-page newspaper ads demanding for the teens’ execution before they were indicted in 1989.
Trump responded to Harris by falsely accusing the men of pleading guilty and killing the woman, saying, in part: “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.”
Twelve days after the 28-year-old jogger survived the attack, she came out of a coma. Two days later, the teens — Antron Brown (formerly Antron McCray), Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — were indicted by a grand jury in state court for attempted murder, rape, sodomy, assault, robbery, sexual abuse, and riot charges.
After two separate trials in 1990, four of the teens were convicted as juvenile offenders, and sentenced to less time than Wise. At only 16, he was tried and sentenced as an adult to five to 15 years in prison. By the turn of the century, all except Wise served their time in prison. They all maintained their innocence and were exonerated after Matias Reyes – the actual perpetrator, who was already serving prison time for a series of rapes that happened around April 1989 – confessed in 2022.
No forensic evidence ever connected the teens to the attack or rape. Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office acknowledged that their case “rested almost entirely” on “troubling discrepancies” throughout “statements made by the defendants,” according to court filings. DNA testing further cleared their names. In 2014, the exonerated men settled a civil lawsuit against the city of New York for $41 million. In court records, they said they have ongoing pain and suffering that increases whenever Trump attacks.
With each defamatory comment Trump makes about their case, he casts them “in a harmful false light and intentionally inflicts emotional distress on them,” Specter, the lead attorney for the Exonerated Five, wrote in a news release. They “seek to correct the record and clear their names — once again.”
Salaam, 50, is in his first term as a New York City Council member. Brown, Santana, and Richardson, all 50, and Wise, 52, are activists for criminal justice reform.
With this litigation, the Exonerated Five are seeking an unspecified amount for damages to their reputation, emotional pain and suffering, out-of-pocket costs and expenses to file a civil lawsuit, and punitive damages to punish Trump “for his conduct and deter him and others similarly situated from like acts in the future,” according to the lawsuit.
Trump currently owes nearly $1 billion stemming from civil litigation.
The 78-year-old owes $489 million for a civil fraud case the Office of the New York State Attorney General filed against him, and over $90 million to E. Jean Carroll for defamation and liability lawsuits she filed against Trump accusing him of sexually abusing her in the 1990s and defaming her reputation. Trump is appealing those judgments.
This story has been updated.
