Members of the "Central Park Five," who were wrongly convicted of rape and murder as teenagers in 1989, have filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump over comments he made about them during the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump made multiple "false and defamatory" statements about the five Black and Latino men, who now refer to themselves as the "Exonerated Five."
The men -- Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown, and Korey Wise -- were convicted in the rape and assault of Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old white investment banker who was jogging through Central Park in April 1989.
The teens, then ages 14 to 16, initially denied being involved but ultimately confessed to the crime. They later recanted and pled not guilty in court, saying they were under duress after hours of coercive interrogation. In the end, all were convicted and sentenced to between six and 13 years in prison.
Their convictions were ultimately thrown out in 2002 when DNA linked a serial rapist to the attack. The group sued New York City for racial discrimination, emotional distress and malicious prosecution, and settled more than a decade later for $41 million.
The case came up during the debate on September 10, when Harris criticized Trump for purchasing a full-page ad in the New York Times after the teens' arrests, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. The former president made an assertion that the group had killed someone and pled guilty.
"They admitted -- they said, they pled guilty," Trump responded to Harris. "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."
Trump's reaction to Harris' comments were inaccurate and defamatory, according to the lawsuit.
"These statements are demonstrably false," the complaint says. "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 goes on to say that Trump's comments are just the latest in "part of a continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct dating back several years, thus constituting a continuing tort."
Co-lead counsel Shanin Specter told The Associated Press that the men are upset because Trump essentially "defamed them in front of 67 million people, which has caused them to seek to clear their names all over again."
The suit is seeking damages of more than $75,000 on claims of defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress, with total damages to be determined at trial.
The Trump campaign says the lawsuit is just another effort to interfere in the election.
"This is just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists, in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris's dangerously liberal agenda and failing campaign," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to the AP.