The “Central Park Five,” also known as the “Exonerated Five,” are suing former President Donald Trump for defamation regarding comments he made during a presidential debate in which he falsely claimed the men had killed someone and pled guilty to the crime in 1989. The lawsuit filed by the men’s attorneys states that the former president’s comments were false and misleading, as none of the Central Park Five actually pled guilty and no one was killed during the assault for which they were wrongfully convicted. The lawsuit seeks to correct the record and clear the names of the men who were all wrongly convicted for a series of assaults in Central Park in 1989, when they were between 14 and 16 years old. Trump had also taken out a scathing advertisement in 1989 calling for the death penalty for the Central Park assaulters. The lawsuit alleges that Trump defamed the plaintiffs, cast them in a harmful false light, and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them. Despite attempts by one of the plaintiffs to engage with Trump after the debate, the former president refused to engage in dialogue about the false and defamatory statements he had made.
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