It’s been 35 years since Donald Trump took out four full-page ads calling for the return of the death penalty so five teenage boys, the so-called Central Park Five, could meet their end. Three and a half decades on, it doesn’t look like the business mogul has learned a damn thing.
Truly, Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds, and the GOP’s Cheeto-colored commander is leading the charge. While they obsess over Kyle Rittenhouse’s innocence, they refuse to offer that same grace to the five men who were exonerated nearly 25 years ago. That stubborn reluctance has the former president looking down the barrel of yet another lawsuit, and many denizens of the web feel this one was a long time coming – including Reverend Al Sharpton.
The lawsuit, filed in Pennsylvania, comes on the heels of comments made by Trump during his debate with Kamala Harris in September. Harris attacked the former president on his decision to take out the ads against the then-14 and 15-year-old boys. Trump responded, as usual, that “a lot of people agreed with him,” before doubling down on his erroneous claims in his signature confusing babble.
“They admit it, they pled guilty. And I said, ‘Well if they plead guilty, they badly hurt a person – killed a person – ultimately, and if they plead guilty. Then they plea ‘we’re not guilty.’”
The Central Park Five case was centered around the sexual assault of a woman in New York’s Central Park, and given that the woman survived, the criminal indictments never included homicide. The Five were just one group of teens rounded up that night. The minors were questioned, unsupervised, for around seven hours before confessing to their supposed crimes, and some gave confessions without family or lawyers present. Each served their full sentence for a crime they didn’t commit, spending their childhoods behind bars.
The men were exonerated in 2002 after the real perpetrator, who had met one of the five in jail, came forward. His DNA matched that found at the scene. After an extensive investigation, The New York County DA vacated all charges levied against the men, noting the “troubling discrepancies” in each boy’s story.
“I think they’re right,” Sharpton said of the lawsuit. “Donald repeated, again, that they’re responsible.” He went on to explain that “DNA cleared them.” Sharpton has been involved with the Five for decades and even hired Korey Wise as an office cleaner after his release.
The lawsuit is just the most recent example of the exonerated men reclaiming their power from the former president. Several members are actively campaigning for Harris, and one took out a full-page ad against Trump – though he didn’t call for the former president’s death.
It comes after years of Trump using his wealth to harass them. In 2014 he wrote an op-ed in the New York Daily News, calling the city’s $41 million settlement over their wrongful imprisonment “A disgrace.” The suit was settled out of court, with each man receiving $1 million for each year in jail.
When asked about the case in 2016, the then 70-year-old refused to acknowledge how his actions escalated the situation. “They admitted they were guilty,” he told CNN, conveniently glazing over how those “admissions” were coerced out of actual children.
Plenty of right-wing talking heads view the lawsuit as an “October Surprise. Trump’s camp responded to the suit saying, “The frantic lawfare efforts by Lyin’ Kamala’s allies to interfere in the election are going nowhere and President Trump is dominating as he marches to a historic win for the American people on November 5th”