The five men involved in the Central Park jogger case are suing Donald Trump for his “false and defamatory” comments during the last presidential debate.
In their suit, the plaintiffs claim that the former US president acted with a “reckless disregard” for the truth during his duel with Vice President Kamala Harris, reports CNN.
The American candidate then claimed that the five American teenagers, at the time, had pleaded guilty to having beaten and raped a young runner in the famous New York park. They had “seriously injured a person, killed a person,” he said.
However, the young men never entered a guilty plea, despite forced confessions which proved contradictory, their lawyers point out in the document.
The young men pleaded their innocence throughout the headline-grabbing 1989 trial and maintained that position throughout their incarceration and after being released from prison.
The lawsuit also points out that no people were killed during this event.
In 2002, the five men were exonerated by the American courts after a DNA test made it possible to identify the real culprit and the latter admitted to being the sole author of the crime.
After filing a lawsuit against the City of New York, the members of the “Central Park Five” were compensated $40 million in 2014.
