The five men claim in a 20-page federal lawsuit that Trump knew he was acting with reckless disregard for the truth when he said during the September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that they pleaded guilty to crimes connected to the beating and raping a woman in New York City, and that the five teenagers badly hurt a person, killed a person in the attack.
Defendant Trump's statements were false and defamatory in numerous respects, attorneys for the men, now all in their 50s, wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Philadelphia. Plaintiffs never pled guilty to the Central Park assaults. Plaintiffs all pled not guilty and maintained their innocence throughout their trial and incarceration, as well as after they were released from prison.
The suit also claims that Trump's comments placed them in a false light and caused them to suffer severe emotional distress. The group was pressured into giving false confessions in the case. They were exonerated in 2002 when DNA evidence linked another person to the crime.
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