The five men collectively known as the Central Park Five, now proudly referring to themselves as the Exonerated Five, have filed a defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump.

This legal action stems from comments made during a presidential debate held on September 10 in Pennsylvania, where Trump made false claims regarding their convictions in connection with the infamous 1989 Central Park assault.

During the debate, Trump asserted, “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.” These statements, however, contradict the reality: the Exonerated Five — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — had consistently maintained their innocence and never pled guilty to any crime.

The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, contends that Trump’s remarks are “demonstrably false.” The complaint emphasizes, “Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing. Further, the victims of the Central Park assaults were not killed.” The men, now in their 50s, assert that they have “suffered injuries as a result of Defendant Trump’s false and defamatory statements.”

Having been teenagers at the time of their indictments, the five men faced severe repercussions, spending years behind bars before being exonerated in 2002. DNA evidence ultimately linked another man, a serial rapist, to the crime, leading the city to agree to a legal settlement of $41 million for the exonerated men. The case has been heavily scrutinized, with claims that the five were intimidated and coerced into making false confessions amid a backdrop of heightened racial tensions and crime in New York City. During this tumultuous time, Trump, then a real estate mogul, infamously took out newspaper ads advocating for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

The complaint highlights that Yusef Salaam, who currently serves as a New York City Council Member representing District Nine, was present during the debate when Trump made his statements. Although the five men did not specify a monetary amount in their lawsuit, they seek a trial to determine damages for the harm caused to their reputations.

In response, Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, dismissed the lawsuit as “just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists, in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris’s dangerously liberal agenda and failing campaign.”

Shanin Specter, an attorney representing the Exonerated Five, expressed the limitations of the civil justice system, stating, “Unfortunately the civil justice system doesn’t permit us to require Mr. Trump to apologize or retract his statement. The most that we can obtain are money damages both to compensate these five men for Mr. Trump’s damaging their reputations and for punishment of Mr. Trump for making these statements.” While he acknowledged that an apology or retraction from Trump would be “helpful,” he added, “we are not holding our breath for that.”