Two weeks before Election Day, the men formerly known as the Central Park Five filed a defamation lawsuit against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday, October 21st. They accused him of making “false and defamatory statements” about them during the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

The group is calling for a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages. “Defendant Trump falsely stated that plaintiffs had killed a person and pleaded guilty to the crime. These statements are demonstrably false,” the group wrote in the federal complaint.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the lawsuit “just another frivolous election interference lawsuit filed by desperate left-wing activists to distract the American people from Kamala Harris’ dangerously liberal agenda and her failed campaign.”

Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise were teenagers when they were accused of raping and beating a white jogger in New York’s Central Park in 1989. The five, black and Latino, said they committed the crimes under duress. They later recanted their actions, pleaded not guilty in court, and were convicted after a jury trial. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after another person confessed to the crime.

After the crime, Trump bought a full-page ad in the New York Times calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty. In the debate, Trump misrepresented key facts of the case when Harris raised the matter. “They admitted, they said they pleaded guilty, and I said, ‘Well, if they pleaded guilty, they seriously injured a person, ultimately killed them… And they pleaded guilty, then they pleaded not guilty.” said Trump. He seemed to confuse admissions of guilt with confessions. Furthermore, no victim died.

The now-exonerated five, including Salaam, who is now a New York city councilman, lobbied for Harris. Some of them spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August and accused Trump of never apologizing for the newspaper ad.

Non-partisan appeal

Kamala Harris joined Liz Cheney on Monday to make a bipartisan appeal to Republican voters worried about Donald Trump, describing the former president as a malevolent force who must be banished from American politics.

The Democratic vice president said at an event in suburban Philadelphia that Trump has “used the power of the presidency to demean and divide us” and that “people are exhausted by it.”

Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, said her background as a conservative means she prioritizes the Constitution over her political party and she is concerned about handing over foreign policy to a “completely unpredictable, completely unstable” Trump. “Our opponents know they can play Donald Trump,” she said. “And we can’t afford to take that risk.”

Harris promised to “invite good ideas from everywhere” and “cut red tape,” and she said “there should be a healthy two-party system in the country.”

Abortion restrictions go too far for abortion opponent Cheney

Although Cheney has long described herself as pro-life, she suggested that Republican women should vote for Harris on the issue of reproductive health because abortion restrictions have gone too far since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade fell. “The American people are voting for freedom, regardless of the party they are registered with,” said Harris, who also warned that “our daughters will have fewer rights than their grandmothers.”

Cheney says she supported Harris because of her concerns about Trump. She lost her House seat after co-chairing a congressional committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. That’s when a violent mob of Trump supporters broke into the building and unleashed bloodshed on law enforcement – a failed attempt to prevent the certification of Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.

Trump attacked Cheney on social media on Monday, calling her “stupid as a rock” and accusing her of being a “war hawk.” Cheney is not the only member of her party to support Harris. More than 100 former Republican officeholders and officials joined Harris last week in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from where General George Washington led hundreds of troops across the Delaware River to a major victory in the Revolutionary War.

As the election approaches, the vice president has become more focused on Trump’s lies surrounding the 2020 election and his role in the violent mob’s failed efforts. She says Trump is “unstable” and “unhinged” and would undermine democratic norms if he gets a second term in the White House. During the campaign, Trump tried to downplay the violent confrontation on January 6, claiming it was “a day of love from the perspective of millions.”