During the Sept. 10 ABC News presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris called Donald Trump out for taking out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of the exonerated “Central Park Five.”
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The five men, who were teenagers at the time, were accused of violently raping a white female jogger in Central Park in April 1989.
In response to Harris, Donald Trump made remarks about members of the group.
“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,” Trump said during the televised event.
“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.”
Now, the “Central Park Five” have filed a defamation suit against the former president over his statements regarding the infamous case.
ABC News has reported that lawyers representing the men—Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Korey Wise and Antron Brown—have filed a civil suit against Trump in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The group has always maintained their innocence, but were convicted and served time in prison. A decade later, someone else confessed to the crime which was corroborated through DNA evidence.
The men are now seeking an undisclosed amount of monetary damages over Trump’s words, claiming his behavior caused damage.
“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 explained.
As of Monday morning, Trump’s attorneys have not yet entered an appearance on the court docket. However, a Trump campaign spokesperson dismissed the suit as just another attempt to take down the former president.
“This is just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists,” they said in a statement.
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