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Tuesday October 22, 2024
(PHILADELPHIA) -- Members of the "Central Park Five" filed a defamation suit against former President Donald Trump on Monday, accusing him of spreading "false, misleading and defamatory" statements about their 1989 case during the Sept. 10 ABC News presidential debate, according to a new court filing.
Attorneys representing the five men -- Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise -- filed their civil suit against Trump in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking monetary damages over his statements, which they say have caused them "severe emotional distress and reputational damage."
The five men, then teenagers, were accused of the violent rape of a female jogger in Central Park in April 1989. The five, who always maintained their innocence, were convicted and served years in prison. A decade after the attack, a different man confessed to the crime, which was confirmed through DNA analysis.
During the debate, Trump was responding to a statement from Vice President Kamala Harris in which she revisited his full-page ad in The New York Times in the wake of the incident that called for the execution of the Central Park Five when he said the following: "[T]hey 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. 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 points out that Trump's statements were false in multiple respects -- noting none of the members of the Central Park Five ever entered guilty pleas in the case, none of the victims of the Central Park assaults were killed, and the mayor at the time of the assaults was Ed Koch -- who did not agree with Trump's position in the full-page ad.
"Defendant Trump’s conduct at the September 10 debate was extreme and outrageous, and it was intended to cause severe emotional distress to Plaintiffs," the lawsuit stated.
Trump's attorneys have not yet entered an appearance on the court docket as of Monday morning.
"This is just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists," a Trump campaign spokesperson said in response to an inquiry about the lawsuit.
According to the court filing, one of the Central Park Five members, Salaam, was actually present at the debate and sought to confront Trump over his statements in the spin room afterward.
Salaam says he repeatedly shouted questions to Trump, saying, "Will you apologize to the Exonerated Five?" and, "Sir, what do you say to a member of the Central Park Five, sir?"
Trump reportedly responded to him at one point, "Ah, you're on my side then," to which Salaam responded, "No, no, no, I'm not on your side."
"Plaintiff Salaam was attempting to politely dialogue with Defendant Trump about the false and defamatory statements that Defendant Trump had made about Plaintiffs less than an hour earlier, but Defendant Trump refused to engage with him in dialogue," the lawsuit stated.
The five men's convictions were vacated in 2002 and Wise, who was still in prison at the time, was released early. The group sued New York City in 2003 and after a decadelong standstill, the lawsuit was settled for $41 million. The city did not admit to any misconduct by its police department or prosecutors.
Salaam was elected to the New York City Council last year, representing northern Manhattan, including Harlem, East Harlem, parts of the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights.
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(WASHINGTON) -- Former President Donald Trump's attorneys have asked the judge overseeing his federal election interference case to further delay the release of a redacted appendix containing evidence amassed by special counsel Jack Smith in his probe of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a Thursday morning court filing.
The release of the redacted appendix, which was an attachment to the immunity motion unsealed two weeks ago by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that included new details about Trump and his allies' actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, is currently scheduled for Thursday.
In their motion Thursday, Trump's attorneys requested that Chutkan delay the release of the appendix until Nov. 14 -- after the presidential election -- when Trump's own reply brief appendix is due. The former president is expected to argue that his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6 should be immune from prosecution.
"Here, President Trump requests only that the Court briefly continue its existing stay of the Order, such that the redacted versions of the SC Appendix and President Trump's forthcoming appendix may be released concurrently," the filing said. "Although this stay will not eliminate the harms President Trump identified in his prior opposition filings, certain harms will be mitigated. For example, if the Court immediately releases the Special Counsel's cherry-picked documents, potential jurors will be left with a skewed, one-sided, and inaccurate picture of this case."
"If the appendices are released simultaneously, at least some press outlets will attempt to report both sides of this case, reducing (although, again, not eliminating) the potential for irreversible prejudice," the filing said.
The filing includes arguments that could draw direct a rebuke from Judge Chutkan, after she previously warned Trump's attorneys to not level any further allegations of partisanship at Smith's team without providing evidence.
Trump's attorneys also argue that while Chutkan has previously said the election will play no role in her decisions in the case, she should address "the public's interest in ensuring that this case does not unduly interfere, or appear to interfere, with the ongoing election."
Smith did not respond to Trump's request for a delay, the filing says.
Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to remain in power.
Smith subsequently charged Trump in a superseding indictment that was adjusted to respect the Supreme Court's July ruling that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken as president.
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