Suit Filed Against Donald Trump by the “Central Park Five” Over False Statements at Presidential Debate
October 21, 2024
PHILADELPHIA, PA – The “Central Park Five” or “Exonerated Five” – the five individuals who were officially exonerated of assaulting a jogger in Central Park when they were teenagers in 1989 – filed a defamation lawsuit today in federal court against Donald J. Trump for false statements made about them during the September 10, 2024 presidential debate.
Plaintiffs Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise were wrongfully convicted when they were between fourteen and sixteen years old and spent the formative years of their lives in prison. Plaintiffs were ultimately cleared of all wrongdoing in 2002 based on conclusive DNA evidence and the confession of the true perpetrator. They have spent the past two decades trying to rebuild their lives and advocating for civil rights.
The lawsuit alleges that during the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris stated that Mr. Trump “took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five.” Mr. Trump then allegedly responded by stating that the Central Park Five “admitted – they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately.” The full video of the debate can be accessed at the following url: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/watch-full-abc-news-presidential-debate/story?id=113470583. The relevant portion of the debate can also be found here: https://exoneratedfiveversustrump.com.
The truth is that none of the Central Park Five pled guilty, nor was anyone killed during the assault.
Mr. Trump also allegedly omitted key facts, further rendering his statements false, misleading and defamatory. These include, among other things, the fact that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office later acknowledged that the teens’ confessions were unreliable and conflicted with the objective evidence; that the convictions were all later vacated by the Court at the recommendation of the District Attorney; that the true perpetrator of the rape, Matias Reyes, confessed; that DNA evidence confirmed that Reyes was the true perpetrator; and that the City of New York ultimately agreed to pay $41 million for its conduct during the investigation.
“The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump defamed the Plaintiffs, cast them in a harmful false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them. The Plaintiffs seek to correct the record and clear their names once again,” Plaintiffs’ attorney Shanin Specter stated.
Shanin Specter and Alex Van Dyke of Kline & Specter, P.C. are lead counsel for Plaintiffs. Jonathan C. Moore and Marc Cannan of Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP are co-counsel for Plaintiffs Salaam, Richardson, Santana and Brown. Jane Fisher-Byrialsen and David Fisher of Fisher & Byrialsen, PLLC and Hollis Whitson of Samler & Whitson, P.C. are co-counsel for Plaintiff Wise.
The case is Yusef Salaam et al. v. Donald J. Trump, case number 2:24-cv-05560, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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