Members of the “Central Park Five,” now known as the “Exonerated Five,” have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over false claims he made about them during last month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris.
In 1989, Trump took out an ad calling for the return of the death penalty in the state of New York after five Black and Latino teenagers were falsely accused of a brutal assault. And he has continued pushing false claims about them even after they were exonerated. When Harris called him out for this at the debate, Trump falsely claimed that the five had pleaded guilty.
Here’s the quote:
A lot of people … agreed with me on the Central Park Five. 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.’
The lawsuit, which requests that a trial be held to determine damages, notes several inaccuracies in Trump’s remarks — none of the teens pleaded guilty before they were wrongfully convicted, for instance, and the victim of the crime didn’t die. (A Trump campaign spokesperson dismissed the lawsuit as “frivolous.”)
Their stories are a reminder of the threat to equal justice under the law if Trump returns to the White House. New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam — one of the Exonerated Five — was in the spin room with reporters after the debate and confronted the former president. Judging from Trump’s quick exit from the encounter, I don’t think he wanted the smoke. After all, this is someone who apparently resists face-to-face tension and reserves his most pointed attacks for social media posts. Four members of the Exonerated Five starred in a recent ad for the Harris campaign and also appeared onstage at the Democratic National Convention. Their stories are a reminder of the threat to equal justice under the law if Trump returns to the White House. They are proof that so long as one is deemed a criminal in Trump’s eyes — facts be damned — there is virtually nothing they can do to clear their name.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. Recommended
