Inset, left to right: Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana (CBS Sunday Morning). Background: Donald Trump speaks at the annual Road to Majority conference in Washington, DC, June 22, 2024. (Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP)
Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Pennsylvania to toss out the defamation lawsuit filed against him by members of the Central Park Five over comments the president-elect made about them during the presidential debate earlier this year, claiming his statements are protected by state law.
The filing asserts that the suit filed against Trump is nothing more than “an attempt to stifle constitutionally protected speech” with claims that are barred by law and “legally deficient.”
Trump’s response was filed Tuesday, just days after his legal team successfully ousted the presiding judge in the case, arguing that his longstanding personal relationship with the plaintiffs’ lead attorney raised concerns about the judge’s impartiality.
In the filed complaint, Antron Brown, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam claim that during his lone debate with Kamala Harris, Trump “falsely stated that Plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime.”
“Plaintiffs allege that these statements, addressing public safety and criminal justice, constitute defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress,” defense attorney Karin Sweigart wrote in the letter to U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone. “However, these claims fail on both procedural and substantive grounds, and Plaintiffs’ attempt to use the courts to silence political discourse is barred by Pennsylvania’s robust protections for free speech.”
Trump’s comments
The exchange in question occurred when Harris said that throughout his life and career, Trump has “attempted to use race to divide the American people.” One of the examples she provided was the full-page ad he placed in The New York Times and elsewhere in 1989 “calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent — the Central Park Five.”
In response to Harris, Trump said “they come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor 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,” he said. “And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”
These words, the complaint said, were “demonstrably false.”
“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 lawsuit said.
Trump’s response
But in Tuesday’s filing, Trump claims that his statements — which were viewed by about 67 million people — “squarely fall within the protections afforded by Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP statute” which provides immunity for “protected public expression” on matters of public concern, “including statements made during a political debate.”
Anti-SLAPP stands for “Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation,” and such laws are designed to prevent people from being intimidated or silenced by the threat of expensive lawsuits.
Trump also argues that his comments during the debate were not defamatory because the statements constitute “non-actionable opinion.”
“President-Elect Trump’s remarks during the debate, which referenced Plaintiffs’ past admissions in the Central Park case, represent his interpretation of public information and are protected expressions of opinion,” the letter states.
Trump further argued that his statements were “substantially true” when “viewed in their full context.”
“Plaintiffs admit that they made statements of guilt during their 1989 arrests, which President Elect Trump accurately referenced in explaining his rationale for placing a newspaper advertisement at the time. The minor distinctions Plaintiffs raise—such as whether they “pled guilty” versus “admitted guilt”—do not alter the “gist” or “sting” of the statements.
The backstory of the Central Park Five
In 1989, the then-teenagers were wrongly accused of raping Trisha Meili as she jogged in Central Park. The five were also accused of attacking two men that same night.
“While in police custody, Plaintiffs were each separately subjected to hours of coercive interrogation, under duress, with no attorney present and often without a parent or guardian present,” the lawsuit recounted. “Plaintiffs all initially denied having any knowledge of the Central Park assaults. However, after hours of interrogation, four of the Plaintiffs agreed to provide written and videotaped statements in which they falsely admitted to having been present during the assaults.”
From there, the Central Park Five faced trials, maintained their innocence, were convicted by juries in 1990 and were sent to prison, only to be exonerated decades later after the real attacker, Matias Reyes, admitted to the crime against Meili and DNA “conclusively” proved that Reyes was the “true perpetrator,” court documents said.
“In fact, Plaintiffs were not involved in the assaults in any way, and their statements were the product of coercion and duress,” the lawsuit said. “Plaintiffs all recanted their coerced statements shortly after their interrogations.”
The Central Park Five were ultimately exonerated, their convictions were vacated, and New York City went on to settle a lawsuit for $41 million
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
