Judge Rejects Trump’s Attempt to Dismiss Defamation Case Involving the ‘Central Park Five’

April 11, 2025 TruthUSA

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ allegation of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A federal judge ruled on Thursday against President Donald Trump’s attempt to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by five black and Hispanic men, known as the “Central Park Five,” who were wrongfully convicted in a 1989 rape case and subsequently exonerated.

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone determined that the plaintiffs can continue their lawsuit, where they claimed Trump made false and defamatory remarks during his 2024 presidential debate against then-Vice President Kamala Harris. However, the judge dismissed their assertion that Trump had willfully inflicted emotional distress, as stated in the court order.

The Central Park Five—Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown, and Korey Wise—were adolescents at the time of their conviction for the 1989 rape and assault of Trisha Meili while she was jogging in New York City’s Central Park. They spent several years in prison before being exonerated in 2002, following a confession from the actual perpetrator and confirming DNA evidence.

The men filed their lawsuit against Trump in October 2024 after the presidential debate where Harris remarked that Trump had taken out full-page ads in New York newspapers advocating for the reinstatement of the death penalty following the Central Park case.

In his defense, as acknowledged in the court document, Trump stated: “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.”

Trump’s legal representatives had asserted that his comments were simply expressions of opinion, representing his rationale at the time for the advertisement placement.

The judge noted that Trump’s claim—that the men pleaded guilty and killed someone—“can be ‘objectively determined to be false,’” meaning it should be viewed as a statement of fact rather than opinion.

The plaintiffs have contended in their lawsuit that Trump made untrue assertions during the debate, emphasizing that they “never pled guilty to any crime” and asserting that the victim of the Central Park attack was not killed.

The plaintiffs are pursuing an unspecified amount in compensatory and punitive damages per their complaint.

The Epoch Times has attempted to contact the legal representatives for both the plaintiffs and Trump for comments but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The five men were exonerated after Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist, revealed to police in 2002 that he acted alone in assaulting Meili in Central Park. New York City subsequently paid the men $41 million in a settlement for their wrongful conviction.

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