Against him donald trump five black and Hispanic Americans were sued for statements he made about a case involving them in a recent televised presidential election in September.
These are 5 men who were wrongly convicted of raping a young woman in New York in 1989 and were acquitted many years later.
The case
THE “Central Park Five”as the press called them, they spent 6 to 13 years in prison, until a serial rapist confessed to being the perpetrator of the rape. He had attacked the 28-year-old woman and after raping and beating her, abandoned her believing she was dead.
About ten days after the crime, Trump, then a real estate mogul, bought advertising space (one page) in several New York newspapers to call for the reinstatement of the death penalty in the State.
At the September 10 telethon, vice president and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris accused Trump of “trying to use racial issues to divide Americans” throughout his career, specifically referring to this incident.
In the lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania, the state where the telephone fight occurred, the five men claim that Trump falsely claimed that they had pleaded guilty and that the victim had died.
In 2014, the Central Park Five received $41 million in damages.
In 1989 they were all minors, between 14 and 16 years old. They were interrogated separately, for many hours, without the presence of lawyers and the accusation was based on the fact that they accused each other. They later withdrew their “confessions”, saying they were framed by the police, but they were all sentenced to prison terms.
One of the five was elected in 2023 to the New York City Council.
Sources: AMPE, AFP