In 1990, five black and Latino teenagers – Kevin Richardson (14), Raymond Santana (14), Antron McCray (15), Yusef Salaam (15) and Corey Wise (16) – who became known as the Central Park Five, Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old white woman wrongly convicted of attacking and raping a jogger, was in a coma for 12 days after the incident in April 1989.
Subsequently, the five who were acquitted — they are all now 50 — now find themselves in the middle of another legal battle: On Monday, five people sued former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, In which he was accused of “false and defamatory”. The statement he made during the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in September. Trump is the Republican candidate for the November elections, while Harris is the Democratic Party candidate.
It is the latest chapter in a long-running saga involving the Central Park Five (now sometimes known as the “Exonerated Five”) and Trump — who once called for their execution in an infamous series of ads. Had done.
So what is the latest lawsuit about, how has the Trump campaign responded and what is Trump’s history with the Central Park Five?
Why are the Central Park Five suing Trump?
At a September debate, Trump said that at the time of the interrogation process in 1989 the teenagers “admitted – they said, they pleaded guilty. And I said, well, if they pleaded guilty, they hurt a person badly. Delivered, ultimately killed a person.
However, no one was killed in the 1989 attack. Meili was severely beaten, leaving her in a coma. And is still struggling with the long-term effects of the attack, but she survived.
Trump was also wrong in his claim that the Central Park Five pleaded guilty: throughout the trial, they all insisted that they were innocent, as their lawyers stated at their trial.
The lawsuit says Trump’s debate comments were delivered “carelessly” and “with reckless disregard for their falsity.”
Four of the Central Park Five said in statements to police during interrogation that they were involved in the attack. But many legal experts accused the interrogators at the time of placing the five young men under duress and actually forcing four of them to falsely confess to attacking and raping Miley.
His sentence ranged from six to thirteen years.
In 2002, the Central Park Five were acquitted when Matias Reyes, a convicted serial rapist who was already serving a life sentence for unrelated crimes, confessed to Meili’s attack.
Reyes’ DNA matched evidence collected at the crime scene, leading New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Tejada to grant a motion to vacate the convictions of the Central Park Five. In 2014, five people sued the City of New York in a civil suit. The city agreed to a $41 million settlement.
In 2016, the men were awarded an additional $3.9m in a settlement from the New York State Court of Claims.
What is Trump’s history with the Central Park Five?
The attack on Meili sparked widespread outrage and anger: she was found naked and gagged, her skull fractured so badly that her left eye was torn out of its socket.
Amid intense media focus on the case, Trump took out full-page, 600-word advertisements advocating the reinstatement of the death penalty with his signature in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, and New York Newsday.
The ads were headlined: “Bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police!”
The ads read: “I want to hate these robbers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and when they kill they should be hanged for their crimes. They should serve as examples so that others think long and hard before committing crimes or acts of violence.
Despite his sentence later being vacated, Trump never apologized for those ads.
How has the Trump campaign responded to the new lawsuit?
The plaintiffs’ attorney, Shanin Specter, said in a statement that Trump’s comments “put them in a harmful false light and intentionally caused them emotional distress”.
But in a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the lawsuit “just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit.” He claimed the lawsuit was intended to “distract the American people from Kamala Harris’s dangerous liberal agenda and failed campaign.”
“Frantic legal efforts by Liam Kamala’s allies to interfere in the election are going nowhere and President Trump is dominating as he delivers a vote to the American people on November 5,” Cheung said, referring to the election date. Moving towards a historic victory.”
Could the lawsuit affect Trump’s campaign?
Most recently at the presidential debates in September and the Democratic National Convention in August, Harris and her supporters have continued to attack Trump over his stance regarding the Central Park Five.
At the DNC, civil rights activist Al Sharpton brought the Central Park Five on stage to speak out against Trump.
“They spent a small fortune on full-page ads calling for the execution of five innocent young teenagers,” Sharpton said, referring to the Central Park Five.
“Forty-five didn’t want to see us survive,” Yusef Salaam said at the DNC, referring to Trump, the country’s 45th president. “Today, we have been acquitted because the real culprit has confessed and the DNA has proved it. [Trump] Still says he still stands by the original guilty verdict. “He rejects scientific evidence rather than admitting that he was wrong.”
In the September debate, Harris criticized Trump for a full-page ad he ran in 1989
“Let’s remember, this is the same person who placed a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, five young black and Latino boys who were innocent. Took out a full page ad calling for their implementation,” Harris said
“I think the American people want better than this, want better than this,” Harris said.
Still, Trump has polled at record levels among black voters for months — support that appears not to have been affected by criticism of Harris and her campaign. Harris is also receiving fewer votes among Latinos than previous Democratic Party candidates.
