The ‘Central Park Five’, now more so known as the ‘Exonerated Five’, were a group of five young teenagers aged 14-16, who were wrongly found guilty in 1989 for the attack and rape of Trisha Meili, who was a 28 year old jogger at the time. The incident left Meili in a coma for 12 days.
Kevin Richardson (14), Raymond Santana (14), Antron McCray (15), Yusef Salaam (15) and Korey Wise (16) were exonerated from prison in 2002 after DNA evidence and a confession from a serial rapist, relieved them of any ties to the attack.
All now in their 50s, face yet another legal battle of clearing their name, this time against Donald Trump. On Monday 21st of October, the group filed a lawsuit against the previous President claiming he made false and defamatory statements during a presidential debate that was between him and Vice President Kamala Harris in September.
The September 10th debate featured a segment that was dedicated to race relations. Kamala Harris called out Trump for taking out a full page advertisement in the New York Times in 1989 to call for the reinstatement of the death penalty at the time the case was being heard. While the ad did not explicitly mention the five teenagers, to someone at the time in New York, this was a clear mention towards the falsely accused.
In response to this recollection by Harris, Trump made a statement saying: ‘They come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five’. He continued to claim that during interrogations of the teenagers in 1989, they ‘admitted – they said, they pleaded guilty. And I said, well, if they plead guilty, they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately.’
The 1989 attack saw no one get killed. While Meili was severely injured at the time, she survived. Trump was also incorrect in stating that the group pleaded guilty. From arrest to the trial they insisted they were innocent.
The filing against the previous President accuses him of giving these statements ‘negligently’ and ‘with reckless disregard for their falsity.’ The filing states that he left out ‘key facts’ which ultimately meant ‘his statements were false.’
Shanin Specter, the five’s attorney, explained how the men are facing no choice but to ‘seek to correct the record and clear their names once again.’
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